Touched by the Moon
by Zidana123
Summary: The course of an entire life can depend upon such fleeting moments. A few words left unspoken. A few seconds left uninterrupted. For Haruto and Saki, the span of mere heartbeats can change the flow of history. Having decided to share their burdens, they take their first steps together. Haruto x Saki. Akira x Yamada. Rated M for violence and lemons.
1. Chapter 1 - The Day After

Hotter. Hotter. Hotter. Hotter.

She twisted the knob until it could turn no more. Until the jets of heated water cascading down scalded her skin. The water splashing to the blue tile floor under her feet darkened with dissolving dirt.

At any other time, she never could have tolerated showering with water this hot. But now it somehow wasn't hot enough. She scrubbed roughly at her skin, reddened from the heat. Even as the dirt from the shrine washed off her body, she still felt unclean, as if an unseen layer of grime clung to her.

And inside...

She probed at herself with her fingers. As she pulled her hand away a pink filament of liquid stretched from her fingertips-and then it was gone, dissolving away into the sluicing water.

She cleaned herself methodically, scouring herself out with two fingers. When the only thing left was clear running water, she went back to scrubbing at her skin. Face. Shoulders. Breasts. Back. Thighs.

Something curious had happened to her state of mind. Her thoughts came slowly, piecemeal like thread unwinding from a spool.

_'Shouldn't I feel disgusted? Horrified?'_

But she felt nothing like that. If anything, she just felt... numb.

_'Ah... I'm in shock. That's normal, isn't it? It's normal for people to go into shock when they're...'_

The spool of her thoughts curled up tightly on itself for a moment, then grudgingly wound back out a single word.

_'Raped.'_

_'Yes, that's the word for what happened. Rape.'_

_'I was raped by Haruto.'_

_'But... it wasn't Haruto, was it?'_

For a moment, Haruto's face swam before her eyes, his boyishly handsome features contorted in pain and need, red eyes blazing, bracketed by glowing slashes.

_'It was the curse. Not Haruto. The curse of the Kamitsuki. Our curse.'_

To her surprise, that thought sank with a small and unexpected sweetness into the core of her being.

_'Our curse. Our bond. Those two may be pilots, but this bond is ours and ours alone.'_

It was enough. She was as clean as she was going to get. Under the redness, her skin was flawless as it had been since her transformation, save for the mark on her left leg. The cuts and bruises left by Haruto were gone, faded even before she'd gotten all the way down the shrine stairs.

_'Like it never happened, right?'_

A bitter half-smile curved Saki's lips as she turned off the water. If only it were so simple.

* * *

He lay in the darkness of his bunk, disgust and horror eating a hole in his gut.

When he had come down from the shrine with his torn shirt tied around his waist, the auditorium was still ablaze with light. Someone had put on music, and the faint tones of Rukino-san's cheery singing wafting from the building had sent a stab of guilt twisting through him. He'd crept back to the dorm in shame, grateful for the darkness and the fact that everyone else in the module, including L-Elf, seemed to be occuped with the post-election celebration.

He'd tried to walk Rukino-san back to campus, but she'd flinched away from him, telling him in a quiet voice that she would be fine on her own. And just like that she was gone. He'd been too dazed with shock to follow her immediately, and by the time he'd collected himself she'd vanished in the night. And what could he do after that? Chase her down? Force her to accept his escort? As if he hadn't already...

Ever since he'd gotten out of Valvrave for the second time, he'd known that he and Shoko could never be together. But he had never understood so clearly before just how twisted and inhuman he had become. It would be better for her and for everyone if he WAS revealed and locked away.

In the dark, his mind spun through wild fancies. He imagined Rukino-san going to Nanami-sensei, telling everyone what he had done. He imagined them denouncing him, throwing him in a jail cell to rot. He imagined Shoko turning her back on him. And it would be no more than he deserved, monster that he was. How could he have done that to Rukino-san? Why hadn't he stopped himself?

He squeezed his eyes shut in misery. He could never remember wholly what happened during the fits, but bits and pieces would come to him afterward. He saw again the terror in Rukino-san's eyes as she struggled under him, felt her nails digging into his wrists as she tried to get him to stop. Even as a human, she'd fought beside him. Risked her life to help him recover his body and Valvrave from the Dorssians. And he had repaid her kindness with that...

And yet he knew deep down that Rukino-san would never tell a soul. From the time he spent piloting with her, he had learned she was rash and mercurial, but doggedly loyal. No, she wouldn't talk. She would carry it around inside her, no matter what it did to her. If he never said a word then neither would she, just like Shoko. She would go on piloting Valvrave with a smile, just like it never happened.

He owed Rukino-san more than to just let her suffer in silence. But when he thought about giving himself up and confessing his crime, bleak despair welled up in him. He could deal with, even welcome public denouncement and imprisonment, but the prospect of Shoko looking at him in revulsion was too much to bear.

There was no way he could do it.

_'I'm such a coward...'_

He was a monster; a monster that deserved to be punished. And yet he didn't have the courage to face his punishment?

_'I have to make things right...'_

No, even as he thought it, he knew that was wrong. There was nothing he could do that would ever make it right.

_'But I can atone for what I did. Even if I can't turn myself in, I can still atone to Rukino-san.'_

Yes. His mind seized on the idea. The guilt churning in his gut didn't vanish, but a measure of calm settled over him. Yes. Even a monster could seek atonement.

Haruto rose. Crossing the room to his desk, he picked up his cell and dialed Rukino-san's number.

* * *

She got two text messages while she was sleeping.

Saki read them on her way to the girls' showers. The first one was from Haruto, asking her to meet him in front of the clock on Chokiba road at 10:00.

_So that Haruto wants to apologize, does he? How inconsiderate, asking to meet at ten. What if I hadn't been able to sleep?_

Truth be told, she'd surprised herself by falling asleep immediately after getting into bed. If she'd dreamed, she didn't remember having done so, and she woke up feeling refreshed. The weird stilted thinking patterns of last night were gone, and the disgust and horror she'd expected to feel later never materialized. Instead she felt a vague optimism bubbling up at the sight of Haruto's text. Here was a chance!

The second text was from Shoko-san.

Minister of Public Relations, huh? She'd take that.

But a photo shoot for all the ministers, also scheduled for 10:00? If it were any other time, she'd be leaping at the spotlight. Today, however...

_Sorry, Shoko-san. I'll be with Haruto at ten, so you'll just have to do without me!_

* * *

Saki sang happily under her breath as she changed into her uniform back in her dorm. Her shower had ended up being unexpectedly long, a good fifty minutes, even though she'd gone in intending to make it quick. Maybe she'd gotten extra sweaty or something while sleeping last night.

"Aaaaah, kimi to tomo ni, hmm~hmm~hm~hmmm..."

_'And maybe a little makeup... nothing too fancy.'_

She dabbed a little mascara onto her lashes.

_'Just to set them off...'_

And a little lip gloss.

_'Done!'_

Saki gave herself an experimental smile in the mirror. A good makeup job was subtle, hard to notice yet still effective, and from the delicate pink of her lips and the definition of her lashes against her eyes, she knew she had accomplished exactly that.

Pleased with a job well done, she stepped to the entryway and reached for her tan boots, the ones that went with her school uniform. They were lying against the wall, right where she'd kicked them off when she'd come in last night. She really should have taken better-

**_The dirt was cold under her bare feet. Slipping on one boot, she raised her head to look for the other. When had she lost her boots? Somehow they'd come off when Haruto-_**

Saki pulled her hand back. The skin between her shoulder blades was chilly with sweat. Her stomach rolled in her belly, slow and queasy. For a moment she thought she might retch.

Then the moment was over, and she was still in a half-crouch, reaching for her boots.

_'Get a hold of yourself, girl!'_ She thought angrily at herself. _'They're just a pair of boots!'_

And yet she didn't want to wear them anymore. At all.

Well, the solution to that was simple, wasn't it? Scowling, Saki pulled her backup pair of boots out of the closet.

_'Pink goes with the ribbon and the skirt, so it's not like a fashion crime or anything.'_

Satisfied with her color coordination, Saki slipped out the door.

* * *

Haruto shuffled his feet as he climbed down the overpass stairs. He hadn't slept a wink all night, going over what he was going to say to Rukino-san in his head.

_'I say I'm sorry for what I did, then I propose to her, tell her I want to atone. That I'll take responsibility. Yeah. Like that.'_

A part of him realized he was getting close to their meeting spot, and he looked up from his feet right up into the bosom of the bikini-clad model on a Sunrise Water billboard plastered across a nearby building.

The sight of all that exposed flesh brought back the image of Rukino-san as he'd last seen her, forlornly draped in his jacket, pale skin glowing in the moonlight. Remorse knifed through him, and as he took a step, his foot skidded out from under him. He tipped backwards, landed on his rear, rebounded somehow, and went sprawling down the last dozen or so steps to the sidewalk.

"Haruto!"

Haruto looked up at the sound of running footsteps and a feminine voice calling his name. Right in front of his face were a pair of very pink calf-high boots, attached to the slender legs of a scowling Rukino-san.

"Good grief, Haruto. You're so clumsy. Are you okay? Wait, of course you are. Healing factor."

"I'm fine." Haruto checked himself over. His clothes were a little rumpled, and there was a scrape on the heel of his right hand where he'd landed on it. But even as he noticed it, the gouged skin smoothed out until there was no trace of the injury.

Rukino-san put her hands on her hips. "You're late!"

He was? Had he screwed up again? Haruto looked at the clock across the street. 9:45. "Sorry... Didn't I say ten?"

"You made me wait, so it's the same as being late, isn't it?" Rukino-san huffed.

_'Ahhh... she's angry. Of course she would be...'_

"I'm sorry..."

"I guess I forgive you."

She certainly didn't LOOK like she had forgiven him. Her arms were still crossed and she was still scowling. Hurriedly, he launched into his prepared speech.

"Rukino-san, I called you because..." He trailed off as she abruptly turned around and walked off. "Rukino-san?"

"Do you really want to talk in the street?" She threw back at him.

There wasn't anything he could do but follow.

_'I guess she knows where she's going...'_

* * *

Saki had no idea where they were going.

Walking away from Haruto like that seemed like the right thing to do, at the time. She had to keep him off-balance. Otherwise...

_'I won't let you apologize so quickly.'_

But now an uncomfortable silence had grown up between them, her leading and him following. Without a destination in mind, she felt more like she was running away from Haruto than anything else. It chafed at her. Here she had time alone with him, and yet...

Behind her, Haruto mumbled, "Uhm, Rukino-san..."

Saki was torn between relief at him breaking the silence, and frustration at his hesitant tone. He was probably trying to apologize again.

"No. We'll talk once we reach a good spot."

But where was a good spot? A patch of blue by a storefront caught her eye.

"Look, there! That blue one!"

"That? But it's a bar..."

He was such a stick in the mud! Her voice came out shriller than she intended. "It's fine, isn't it?! We're ministers now, we can just change the law!"

Saki swept into the bar and plunked herself down in a chair in front of the counter. As Haruto came in behind her, she turned and gave him a commanding look. "Let's have two milk teas."

"Two...?" Haruto looked confused for a second. "Yes, right away!" He stripped off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and began to poke and prod manfully at the tea dispenser behind the bar counter.

It took him a while to get the hang of it, but Haruto finally managed to figure out the machine and produce two cups of milk tea. He set one down before Saki, and then took his own and slid into a chair on the other side of the counter.

Now that Saki had a moment to watch him, she realized he wasn't looking too good. His boyishly cute face was haggard and there were faint black shadows under his eyes. Hadn't slept since last night, most likely.

_'Ah... Haruto. You've been taking this hard, haven't you? Even for something that wasn't your fault?'_

She was wrong to treat him so harshly, she realized. Thinking back, she understood now that she HAD been angry at him ever since she'd seen him this morning; a misplaced anger, because it was easier to focus it on him than at something nebulous like a curse or their circumstances. But what would her anger accomplish? He was no doubt already punishing himself in his own heart more than anything she was willing to do.

_'He's just as much of a victim in this as I am. More so. I chose that curse, knowing full well what it was, after all.'_

"Haruto, over here." Saki patted the seat next to her.

"Oh... okay." He hesitantly moved over to the adjacent seat. Was he nervous about being near her?

She took a sip of her milk tea. The hot sweet liquid settled into her core and warmed her nicely. "Mmmm... nice tea, Haruto."

"Thanks." He glanced down at his own cup, then back up at her. "About what happened..."

"Drink your tea, Haruto. It's best when it's hot." Saki chided him gently.

"Ah. Right."

"It's good, isn't it?"

"Yes."

They sat drinking their milk teas in silence for a moment.

It was nice. She'd never spent this kind of time alone with Haruto before. It was always Dorssian Navy this or Kamitsuki attack that. Even the time they'd spent working on the Sakimori promo video was filled with shop talk. Never time to just sit and enjoy themselves.

In fact, now that she thought about it, it was the first time she'd been alone with a boy doing pleasantly nothing. Too young before she became a star. Too busy getting famous after becoming an idol. And all of the boys at Sakimori were twits, too entranced with her former status to be of interest to her. Until Haruto, of course.

_'A date, then? My first real date with a boy?'_

How messed up was her life, that it took being raped for her to get a date with the boy she liked? The boy who was in love with someone else?

_'I'll take it though. Yes. Even if it's for one day, and I have to give him back to Shoko-san tomorrow. I'll always have this.'_

_'I should enjoy it while it lasts.'_

"Haruto."

Haruto snapped to attention. "Yes?"

Saki smiled at him. "After you finish your tea, let's get something to eat."

* * *

Rukino-san's demeanor had changed completely since leaving the bar. The surly and grumpy side of her from earlier was gone, replaced by quips and laughter as she dragged him all around the town.

She was so hard to understand. So tempestuous. The anger from before he got; what girl wouldn't be angry after what he did to her? But this happiness? In any event he'd realized she didn't want to talk about what had happened, and so he kept his mouth shut on his proposal after her third rebuke.

But as Haruto followed in her wake, something strange and wonderful was happening to him. The ball of guilt and remorse in his belly slowly smoothed out, his conscience eased by her smiles.

He couldn't wholly shake the idea that she was just pretending to be happy, and he hoped if she was pretending, it wasn't for his sake. But she didn't seem to be faking... Although it was so hard to tell with her.

The atmosphere had changed completely as well, to something almost like... a date? Not that he would know. He'd only been on one in his life, back in middle school with that girl whose name he couldn't recall at the moment. And that had been really awkward.

Really, really awkward.

_'An idol like Rukino-san is probably an old pro at dating.'_

Since that was the case, he was glad she was running the show.

"Ahhh..." Rukino-san had stopped in front of a fountain in the middle of an intersection. She peered down the street in all four directions, and then turned towards him with a huge smile, her eyes sparkling.

"I've always wanted to do this!" She laughed. Taking off her boots and socks, Rukino-san stepped into the fountain's shallow pool. The fountain was one of those affairs with a spinning curtain of water that rotated around the pool's circumference, and as the moving screen of water approached her, Rukino-san began to spin and dance, staying just in front of the advancing water.

Haruto watched her, his mouth agape. Droplets of water gleamed in Rukino-san's dark hair as it swirled and rippled in time with her movements, framing her exuberent face. Her slender body moved with supple grace as she whirled through the water, her bare ankles cutting smooth wakes through the liquid in the pool. She was so beautiful that his heart contracted and seemed to skip a beat.

Was this the idol that everyone else saw? Although he had never really been interested in her music videos or shows before, he was filled with a sudden urge to go and buy every bit of her work he could get his hands on. But before he could think too much about that, Rukino-san shouted at him from the far side of the fountain.

"Haruto! Lose your shoes! Lose your shoes!"

_'Ah, she wants me to...'_

Haruto stepped out of his shoes and socks just in time before Rukino-san swept back around the fountain, laughing happily and pulling him into the pool with an outstretched hand. He hadn't taken two steps in the shallow water when he realized two things:

One: The bottom of the pool was ALOT slipperier than it looked. Two: Rukino-san must have been cheating somehow, because there was no way a normal person could do that spinning dance number with this kind of footing.

For the second time in a day, Haruto's foot skidded out from under him, and down he went on his butt in the water, kicking up a splash that drenched him from the waist down. Rukino-san stopped in her tracks to laugh at him, but a moment later the moving curtain of water from the fountain swept over her, and she let out a loud and dismayed "KYAAA!" as she jumped out of the pool.

The two grinned at each other, somewhat soggy. This time, Rukino-san helped Haruto to his feet.

* * *

Saki hadn't planned it, but seeing the pharmacy made her realize there was something she had to do.

As she came to a halt, Haruto nearly walked into her from behind.

"Wah! Rukino-san! I'm sor-

"It's fine. Haruto, I need to stop in here for a moment. Could you..." She scanned the street for some errand she could distract him with. "Oh! Haruto, look! There's a crepe cart over there!"

And indeed there was. On the other side of the street there sat a common crepe cart, the kind that cooked crepes on an electric griddle with a filling to order. This one looked in good condition, untouched by the fighting that had damaged so many buildings in the heart of the city.

"Do you think you could get it running and make some crepes for us, Haruto?"

"I could, but... what is it you need to get in there, Rukino-san? I could help you carry-"

So it was going to be like that, was it? Not that she didn't appreciate him offering to help, but she did NOT want him coming into the pharmacy with her.

"Thanks, Haruto, but it's just... a little thing, you know..."

"It's alright, even if it's little, I want to help-"

_'You're too nice for your own good, Haruto.'_ She turned her face slightly away from him, and gave him her best shy look from under her eyelashes. "It's... you know... for feminine hygiene... don't make me say it, Haruto-kun..." She flicked her gaze to him, then to the ground as if embarrassed.

Saki had to hold back a laugh as Haruto's face turned bright red. _'Oh, Haruto. I can't help teasing you. You're just too cute!'_

"Yes, well, I'll-I'll go get those crepes done!"

And before she could even blink, Haruto was halfway across the street.

_'You're such an innocent boy, aren't you, Haruto?'_

It was his most endearing quality, really. Saki found herself smiling ruefully. One moment he could be standing up to the teeth of the Dorssian Navy, and the next, he was a blushing boy, embarrassed at the thought of a girl doing personal shopping.

_'But there's no time to dwell on that now, is there?'_

Her smile fading, Saki walked through the pharmacy door.

Inside, she quickly strode across the dusty floor, her footfalls echoing in the deserted building. The feminine hygiene aisle lay to her left, filled with rows of tampons, pads, and other feminine care products, but she walked past it. The truth was, her dorm room was well-stocked with such things, and if she needed more she'd simply stop by the school infirmary.

No, she was here for something else entirely.

Making her way to the back of the store, she stopped before a shelf of pills. She swept her gaze across them carefully, then picked up a package.

_'So that's what 'morning after' pills look like... just your everyday normal medicinal tablets.'_

There was no way she could risk a pregnancy. Not with the war on. Not with hundreds of her fellow students depending on her to fight in peak condition. And if she did get pregnant, how could she justify bringing her unborn baby out with her to the battlefield?

She quickly looked over the instructions on the package, ripped it open, and dry-swallowed one of the pills. She was about to walk away with her prize when she had second thoughts. Grabbing a bag from a nearby rack, she filled it with packages of contraceptives. It never hurt to be prepared.

* * *

Haruto had managed to get the griddle going by the time Rukino-san emerged from the pharmacy.

The good news: the griddle was linked to the module's main power system through a port in the ground, and all he had to do was flip a switch to turn it on.

The other good news: there were a dozen plastic bags of crepe mix in the crepe cart. And they were the instant, just add water variety too!

Yet more good news: there was a mixing bowl handy, and with some water from a tap in the cart he'd managed to make a good-sized batch of batter.

The bad news: the fresh fruit toppings on the cart had gone to mold and slime since the war started.

The good news that made up for the bad news: there were bottles of syrups of all flavors, candy toppings, and dehydrated 'marshmallows,' all chock full of preservatives and ready to last into the next decade, if necessary.

The bad news that may have made all the previous good news irrelevant: Haruto had no idea how to make a crepe.

He ladled a good-sized dollop of batter onto the heated griddle, where it immediately began to sizzle and spread out.

Rukino-san set down the plastic bag she was holding behind the cart and came over to watch. "Haruto, you know how to make crepes?"

Haruto grimaced. "Not... quite. But I can make pancakes. How hard could it be to make a crepe?" _'Shoko probably knows how to make crepes. I'll have to get her to teach me sometime.'_

"Hmm," said Rukino-san.

Bubbles were starting to form around the edges of the sizzling batter.

_'Let's see. If it was a pancake, it would be time to flip. But this is not a pancake. So I have to spread it out. Spatula.'_

Haruto scraped away the top of the crepe with a spatula, pushing the raw batter to the sides. Immediately he could see that he had done something wrong. The batter on the bottom of the crepe was already cooked, so by the time the newly formed edges were done, the bottom of the middle would be blackened.

"Hmm," said Rukino-san again.

_'Okay, the edges aren't raw enough to flip, but I need to flip or else the bottom will burn. So if I cut out the middle bit...'_

Haruto used his spatula to cut around the cooked central part of the crepe. He lifted it clear of the outer ring and flipped it over. The thusly revealed underside looked... well, rather like a pancake.

"That's a donut." Rukino-san pointed out.

"Donuts are round."

"That's round."

"Round like... a disk. With depth. This is flat." Haruto resolved to look up what a flattened cylinder thing was called.

"Donuts have a hole in em."

"Lots of things have holes in em."

"Mmph." Rukino-san said.

Having silenced Rukino-san with his impeccable logic, Haruto turned his attention back to the crepes.

_'That middle bit looks about done. So... let's get it out.'_

Haruto dribbled some strawberry-flavored syrup onto the middle section of the crepe, then slid his spatula under it and moved it to a waiting platter.

_'And now the outside part needs flipping.'_

This operation went a little less successfully. As Haruto lifted the ring of half-cooked dough onto his spatula, it tore under its own weight and slid back onto the griddle in a tangled mess.

"You broke it." Rukino-san said.

"It's lots of little crepes." Haruto started slicing the ring apart into more managable chunks with the edge of his spatula.

"I like big crepes."

"Well, these little ones are for me." Haruto scooped the bits of cooked dough onto the platter.

"Suit yourself."

The griddle cleared, Haruto dipped his ladle back into the bowl of batter, when Rukino-san extended a slender hand towards him.

"I want a turn."

"Eh? You can make crepes, Rukino-san?"

"Better than you."

Shrugging, Haruto handed over bowl and ladle, and prepared to see himself get shown up by Rukino-san yet again.

As it turned out shortly thereafter, Rukino-san was no better than him at making crepes.

Haruto peered at the twisted... thing on the griddle. "Is that a lemon?"

Rukino-san waved her hand at him impatiently. "It's a bat. It's abstract, okay?"

As the batter in the mixing bowl got lower and lower, a tower of cooked dough pieces rose up in the platter. But not one of them could rightfully be called a crepe. They were strange asymmetrical shapes, many with torn edges. Some approximated a circle, while others were clumped tangles of dough that couldn't even lie flat.

And of course, none of them was close to thin enough for a crepe.

Haruto was transferring his latest failure from griddle to platter when Rukino-san started to laugh. He had to admit she made an enchanting sight, her beautiful face shining with mirth. A smudge of white batter on one round cheek gave her an innocent, childlike look, as if she were a little girl helping out in the kitchen.

"Oh... look at us, Haruto..." She giggled. "We can pilot giant robots and hold our own against the best and bravest of the Dorssian military... and we can't figure out how to make a crepe?"

Her laughter was infectious, and Haruto had to laugh as well. "I guess being a crepe chef is where the real men go. We should tell L-Elf to quit his day job." He showed the empty bowl of batter to Rukino-san. "I guess we're done here?"

Still laughing, the two teens settled on a nearby bench to eat their misshapen creations.

* * *

"Ugh... no more..." Saki groaned as she slid another forkful of crepe between her lips.

Beside her, Haruto let out a belch. "I'm done for..."

Saki eyed the platter between them. The heaping tower of crepes was down to a mere three. Problem was, her stomach was full as it would go. "Yeah... I think I'm done. For real now."

Haruto put his fork down on his plate with great finality. "Same here." He thumped his chest to get his last mouthful down the pipes. It seemed to have worked for Shoko during their eating contest.

Saki was eyeing the crepe platter again. "You know." She said slowly. "We shouldn't waste food these days. Once what's in the module is gone, we can't get any more until the Moon."

Haruto sighed. "Okay, so let's bag em and eat em later."

"No no," Saki shook her head. "You have to eat street crepes hot off the griddle. If you don't they won't be crisp anymore and it'll be a terrible waste!"

"They weren't crisp to begin with! Look, they're basically a pancake..."

"If they came from a crepe cart, they're a crepe! Anyways, you eat them, Haruto!"

"Whaaaat?" Haruto objected. "Why me?"

"An idol has to watch her figure." Saki tossed her head haughtily.

"But you already ate like ten, Rukino-san!. Come on, a few more won't hurt."

"Ten is where this idol draws the line."

"I don't follow your reasoning."

Saki flopped back on the bench, dramatically pointing up towards the dome of the module with one hand. "GO FORTH, YOUNG HARUTO!" She cried in a booming voice. "THIS SHALL BE TRAINING FOR YOUR NEXT EATING CONTEST! OR WILL YOU LET YOUR HAM N' EGG BREAKFAST BE SLICED IN TWAIN?"

"That doesn't even make- Fine, fine, I'll eat em." Haruto reluctantly picked up his fork again. He conjured up the mental image of Shoko, broom in hand. _'Tell me I have no drive, will you?'_ He rolled up two of the crepes into a ball of dough, jabbed it with his fork, and jammed it into his mouth.

Saki found herself smiling fondly as she watched Haruto eat. His face was bright red and bits of crepe sprayed out between his teeth as he chewed vigoriously. In no way could he be considered handsome at the moment, or even cute. In fact his eating was downright gross. But somehow she couldn't look away.

_'Ah, what the heck, right?'_

She slid the last crepe from the platter onto her plate.

Haruto swallowed his mouthful and seemed surprised to see her slowly eating the last crepe. "I thought I was supposed to eat those."

"I changed my mind."

"Mmm-hmm."

Saki finished off the crepe, then stretched languidly. The "daylight" of the module had mostly dried her soggy clothes, and now that her belly had gone from empty to overly full, she wanted nothing more than to lie down. "Haruto, I wanna lie down. Gimmie your shoulder, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she scootched up next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

She felt his body tense underneath her, and then relax. Gradually, gradually, his breathing slowed, and his body slumped.

_'So he's nodded off. Good, he needs the rest.'_

Saki closed her eyes, but couldn't go to sleep. After a few moments, she sat up and looked at the dozing Haruto.

Even sleep, it seemed, couldn't ease Haruto's cares. His brow was furrowed ever so slightly, and he looked so young and fragile that it made her heart ache. To think that the safety of an entire country of people rested on his shoulders. Seeing him like this, she never would have guessed he was her upperclassman.

There was so much she wanted to tell him. How he wasn't the monster that he seemed to think he was. No one short of a genuine saint could have reacted so unselfishly to her joyriding in his body for her own personal gains. That he was himself, Haruto. separate from the things that the curse made him do.

That she felt the same pain he did. The same loneliness.

That together they could both be whole.

But whenever she tried to open her mouth and tried to put those feelings into words, they just caught in her throat.

The really ironic thing was that she HAD spoken those words before. Hundreds of thousands of people had heard her say them, but those words had not been meant for them. And now to the one person whom she wanted the most desperately to tell them to, she remain tongue-tied.

_'That's so pathetic, I could just laugh.'_

But there was a solution, wasn't there? If she couldn't say those words, she could just let herself say them.

_'But will he understand?'_

Even if he didn't, at least she had to try.

She'd let him sleep a little more first, though.

* * *

"Say, Haruto..."

"Wha?" Haruto blinked awake. At some point he must have dozed off. "How long was I asleep?"

Rukino-san checked her phone. "It's 15:22."

The sight of Rukino-san looking down at her phone couldn't have woken Haruto up any faster than if he'd had cold water thrown in his face. Somehow while having fun with her, he'd completely forgotten why he'd asked her to meet him in the first place. He shot to his feet, causing Rukino-san to flinch back with a choked gasp.

"Rukino-san! I want to-" Haruto was cut off suddenly by Rukino-san's index finger, pressed lightly against his lips.

_'Her finger is so soft...'_

"This will be the last one. So please..." Rukino-san whispered.

Her purple eyes brimmed with determination and some emotion he couldn't identify.

What could he do but nod?

"Thank you, Haruto."

Rukino-san led him to a movie theater. Traditional end to a date, he supposed. After stuffing themselves on pancakes, neither of them was in much of a mood for snacks, so Haruto sat down in a seat while she went up to fiddle around in the projection booth.

After a while, the screen came to life and started showing a line-up of studio logos. Rukino-san came down the aisle and plopped into the seat next to him. "Good thing I could plug my cell into the projector system. I had to pirate this off the internet."

"Rukino-san, that's illegal!"

"Hmph! If anyone is entitled to watching this movie for free, it should be me!"

"But you can't just-"

"Shhhh! It's starting!"

The screen was showing the intro credits now. A girl in a blue sailor uniform was putting together a box lunch to light instrumental music. The camera work focused on the girl's delicate hands as they deftly chopped up vegetables, tossed them in a pan with rice, and finally packed the cooked food into a plastic box.

And then the camera panned to show the girl's face. Haruto couldn't help but do a double take.

_'Rukino-san?'_

A younger Rukino-san beamed happily at him from the screen. He snuck a surreptitious glance at the Rukino-san sitting beside him. She was watching the screen, a wistful look on her face.

_'She wants to reminisce about the old days?'_

He couldn't blame her. The Rukino-san on the screen... what, she must have been thirteen or so? She looked so cheery as she went about her business. He remembered once again her blank gaze from the night before, after what he'd done.

_'I was the one who took that away from her,'_ he thought remorsefully.

Taking a cue from Rukino-san, he watched in silence.

* * *

By the three-quarters point, Haruto was thinking he didn't like this movie very much.

_'If Rukino-san wants to watch this, then I should watch it with her. But I swear if we do this again, I'm not letting her pick the movie.'_

No matter how he sliced it, Rukino-san's movie wasn't very good. For one thing, it was a romantic drama. Hardly the kind of thing he was interested in. Then too, the plot was too cliche for his taste. It was your standard girl meets boy, girl pines for boy, girl gets boy kind of affair.

And while it took him a while to get to it, Haruto had to admit something.

The young Rukino-san simply wasn't a very good actress. While she certainly was very cute and photogenic with her big eyes, round cheeks, and gleaming smile, there was something just a little off about how she delivered her lines. It was clear that she was just reciting from a script.

Not that he'd ever tell her that, of course.

She'd gotten alot better since whenever she made this movie though. Judging from the lies she'd told him about her family, she'd grown leaps and bounds as an actress. Or at least, Haruto thought, if those had been lies. It was hard to tell if Rukino-san had been lying when she'd claimed to be lying, or if she had been telling the truth.

_'Agh, why does she have to be so complicated? Why can't she be more direct, like Shoko?'_

First she was spurning him. And then she was kissing him. And then she was crying in front of him. And then she was hijacking his body.

After he'd attacked her, when she'd had every right to be angry at him, to hate him and resent him, she instead treated him with warmth and genuinely seemed to want to spend time with him. Why? What did she want from him?

_'Oh, it looks like the confession scene is coming up.'_

On the screen, the younger Rukino-san was standing in a grove of cherry trees, their petals wafting across the shot by the dozen. Haruto liked cherry blossoms as much as the next JIORan, but this was just a little gratuituous, wasn't it?

"I've always been alone."

"Huh?" It took Haruto a moment to process that it was the Rukino-san sitting by his side that spoke those words.

"Family? Friends? No one chose me."

Her words came detachedly, almost tonelessly. As if she were talking about someone else.

"But you HAVE been chosen. You're a popular idol! You even starred in movies!"

Rukino-san didn't seem to hear him. Her lovely face was still and blank as she stared at the screen. "I wanted to be chosen. By just one person. If my loneliness became our loneliness, that would've been enough for me."

"Rukino-san, do you mean..." Haruto was at a loss. What should he say?

"I've always been alone."

_'Huh?'_

With a feeling of deja vu, Haruto swung back to look at the movie screen. There, the younger Rukino-san was making her confession.

"Family? Friends? No one chose me."

Gone was the stilted and wooden line reading from before. Her voice had been completely transformed; the delicate tones were full of sadness. Loneliness. Longing.

"I wanted to be chosen. By just one person."

The on-screen Rukino-san was speaking from her soul. It was as if her voice was filled to brimming with all of the emotion that should have been in the voice of the Rukino-san in the theater. Haruto looked back at the girl in the seat beside him. Her face was turned toward him, and in her violet gaze was a pain and yearning so deep it cut into his heart.

"If my loneliness became OUR loneliness, that would've been enough for me."

Abruptly, Rukino-san broke eye contact with him. Laughing, she swept to her feet. "I'm amazing, huh? I did this movie two years ago, but I still remember my lines! I was quite the talented actress, If I dare say so myself!" She suddenly spun away from him, hiding her face behind her hair.

"You're wrong!" Haruto flung himself to his feet. Rukino-san's back flinched, and she turned back to face him.

"Rukino-san, you're not alone anymore." Haruto's prepared speech flashed through his head. He considered his words, the carefully selected phrases he'd thought of through the night-and then threw them out.

He understood now what she wanted from him. It had always been so simple. He was a fool to have not understood.

* * *

"You're wrong!"

Saki shuddered at the raw emotion in Haruto's words. For a brief moment, she thought about dissembling again. Of making a joke about how she WAS a good actress, and how dare he imply otherwise. But as she turned to deliver the quip, the look on his face froze her words in her throat.

Haruto's face was fixed stonily, his eyebrows furrowed, his mouth taut. He had the same look from when he was confronting Renbokoji before the Valvraves. His stubborn look.

So here it was then, the apology. It could be delayed no more. She struggled to frame a response for the words she knew were coming. Should she accept it, even though what happened wasn't actually his fault? Would that help? Or should she refuse to accept it, and tell him the truth, that she didn't hold him responsible? Which would better grant him the absolution he was looking for?

"Rukino-san, you're not alone anymore." In the theater walkway, Haruto sank to one knee before her.

_'Wait, what?'_

"I choose you. Will you marry me?"

His words quite literally knocked the breath out of her.

Saki's lungs emptied in a wordless exhale as a flurry of emotions she didn't quite understand why she should feel rushed through her. Grief, remorse, guilt. And then on their heels came happiness. A bright simple joy that rushed to her head and left her giddy. For a moment she thought she would swoon.

Between them, unheard, the soundtrack of the movie swelled to a cresendo. Haruto was still staring at her, determination shining in his blue eyes.

"Haruto. I..." Saki heard herself say. "Yes."

They stared at each other for a long moment, each unsure what to say. Saki was the first to unfreeze, and was taking a step towards Haruto when-

BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

_'Oh, not now, NOT NOW!'_

"Goddamn it, you blasted Dorssians!" She screamed in frustration as Haruto jumped to his feet.

"Enemy forces detected! All personnel to battle stations at once!" Kitagawa-san's voice, slightly panicky, boomed out over the PA system.

Saki reached out and grabbed onto Haruto's hand, their fingers interlacing as they began to run for the fire exit in the back of the theater. "Just like those Dorssians. No respect for other peoples' personal time," she grumbled.

"Nope. No respect at all." Haruto agreed.

Chapter 1 End

* * *

**A/N: First, I gotta thank xchrispx for beta reading and letting me bounce ideas off him.**

**And also I gotta thank him for endorsing my fic (before it was even written, no less!) in hiso wn Haruto x Saki fic, The Gift of a Curse, which is an awesome fic and you should totally go check it out (if you haven't already). You can find it at s/9513217/**

**I think there's two reasons why I'm doing this fic.**

**First, while a story about a tragic hero who dies in the final battle (and you know he's gonna.) while he sows the seeds for a great empire and a tragic heroine who carries on upholding their promise to each other centuries later has a great bittersweet taste to it, it can't satisfy my appetite for a happy ending.**

**Second, I want to... let's say, 'fix' a number of elements I regard as problematic in the 2nd season of the show. What I heard, and this is totally unsubstantiated, is that the series originally got slated for 2 seasons, but the writers assumed they would get a 3rd season, and planned their plot around having 36 episodes. But because the series was not all that popular (for whatever reason) they never got their 3rd season and had to cut down alot of what they wanted to do. And that's why there's so much weirdness in season 2.**

**So this fic will be about Haruto and Saki (like it says on the tin), and will also introduce a new plotline in place of season 2, eventually going forward into new territory beyond that. And I am planning on it having a happy ending.**

**But as the beginning of the chapter indicated, this will get DARK. So fair warning. I'm hoping to not cross the line into actual angst, though.**

**One last thing: none of the flashforwards seen in Season 1 are considered as canonical in this fic. Nothing seen in Season 2 past the time skip in episode 1 is necessarily canonical either. For all we know, Marie could just be a normal girl, Lord Satomi can wind up dead, and Papa Tokishima is lying on a beach somewhere sipping a fruity beverage and combing oil into his fabulous mustache.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading and here's to seeing you in the next chapter!**

**Updates on story progress can be found in my profile!**


	2. Chapter 2 - The Siege of Module 77

"Rukino Saki, Carmilla, Box out!"

The walls of the launch tunnel blurred by, and then Carmilla was surrounded by stars. She curled back towards the module as soon as she cleared the outer hanger, towards where Inuzuka-senpai and Yamada's Valvraves were pushing against the module's hull, blue and yellow hard light trails spewing outwards.

"You two're late!" Yamada growled out over the comm.

"It's okay, the audience knows you're just my warm-up act." Saki joked as Carmilla settled against the hull, Haruto in his VVV I touching down a moment behind her.

"Maintain course 741." L-Elf commanded.

Saki punched up her rearview display on her console. There were an awful lot of Dorssians this time. Maybe a dozen cruisers hung between them and the Moon, along with attendant swarms of Waffe and the bug-like Ideals, slowly growing larger as they neared. By far the largest Dorssian force they'd seen since leaving JIOR Sphere One.

_'But it doesn't matter today!'_

The joy she'd felt back in the theater hadn't left. It had muted a little while she did her preflight checks, damped down by the minutia and routine. But now with the surge of pre-battle adrenaline, it had grown, a pure transcendal note filling her heart.

_'You can have all the numbers in the world, and it won't help you!'_

"Here they come!" Haruto's VVV I peeled off from the wall and flew towards the Dorssians.

Saki followed suit, and space around her lit up with energy weapon discharges and mass driver bolts. Yamada bellowed as Nobu Lightning took a hit, but Carmilla whirled and spun through the Dorssian fire effortlessly.

_'Because today, Rukino Saki is invincible!'_

Her Spindle Knuckle flashed out and smashed through two Waffe slave units. The piloted third unit tried to back off, and got pulverized by the Knuckle as it came looping back.

She was deep in the enemy line now, enemy fire snarling all around her. A spray of guided missiles flew at her, but she kicked away from them, angling towards the Ideal that shot them, then dodging past at the last moment. She had to laugh as the Ideal was plastered behind her by its own missiles, reeling off course with one of its wings shattered and venting vapors.

"You're too slow for this dance!"

Carmilla spun around, launching her Spindle Knuckle. The spinning blade sliced into the wounded Ideal's belly, and the thing went up in a purple flash that consumed another flock of Waffe in pursuit of her.

Then there were more. She cut through more Waffes, and was soaring towards another Ideal when it erupted into a fireball before her. Inuzuka-senpai's blue VVV V flashed by, green blazing from its arm cannons. Dorssian ships spun around her, and she carved a path through them, exuberance singing in her veins. Carmilla seemed to hear the noteless song of joy as well; her Valvrave had never felt so quick, so responsive, so that the Dorssian ships swarming around her almost seemed to be standing still.

It was her greatest performance to date... and as always she was recording her cockpit feed. But unlike her previous fights, she wasn't intending to stream the recording over Wired later.

The next fight, perhaps. But this one...

_'Haruto... This dance is for you.'_

* * *

Haruto felt helpless as he never had been before in an operational Valvrave. The Moon was RIGHT THERE, a pale bloated face beaming towards them.

Except, they were only separated from the Moon by the biggest Dorssian fleet he'd seen. In terms of sheer numbers, even the Valvraves would be overwhelmed eventually, and every time he swung VVV I around he caught a glimpse of Waffe units strafing the module, thick as flies. Explosions flashed on its surface periodically, and Haruto felt sick knowing that every time he saw a detonation, someone he knew might have been killed.

He smashed through a Waffe formation with his sickle and buckler, released an ejecta of hard light from his thrusters to block a volley of shots from a cruiser's deck guns behind him, and returned fire with his rifle, stitching a line of explosions across the cruiser's bow. The Dorssian ship shuddered and its guns fell silent. Before he could target the bridge atop the superstructure to finish it off, an incoming Ideal claw arm forced him to abandon his position. He spun around and took an unaimed shot at the Ideal, but it just boosted easily out of his line of fire. He vented his frustration over the comm.

"L-Elf! There's just too many of them! We can't handle this!"

"Everything is going as planned," L-Elf sounded cool and calm as ever. Haruto blinked as a popup came up on his console, showing that the Dorssian fleet had split in two. A few of the enemy ships were still clustered in their original position near the border of the Moon's neutral zone, but the remainder was chasing the retreating module, stretching into a relatively thin line. "In order to pursue Module 77, the enemy had to break formation," L-Elf explained.

Haruto saw the implication immediately. As they were, the Dorssians were in the perfect position for the Harakiri blade. All they had to do was hold out until then. "Understood!"

_'No need to hold back on overheating then!'_

He opened up his throttle all the way, filling space with a web of hard red luminescence. Enemy ships swarmed towards him, their pilots drawn by the light show, and he blasted his way through them, sending their shattered wreckages spinning away. The thermal gauge on his console climbed quickly, until it finally hit the 100 mark, and VVV I shuddered to a halt.

"Harakiri blade charging!"

* * *

"Dammit, they're all going for Haruto!" Inuzuka-senpai yelled.

Saki banked Carmilla away sharply from the Ideal she had her sights on. VVV V was already supporting the immobile VVV I, its shields turned towards a cruiser bearing down on them, shrugging off energy blasts and mass driver bolts alike. "HEY! Over here!"

"Rukino-san, look out behind you!"

Saki shaved a shield panel from a Waffe that came just a little too close. She'd seen that one coming from a mile off. "Haruto? Shouldn't you be concentrating on the Harakiri Blade?"

"Oh yea, I'll just stare at the numbers going up and mumble 'hurry up hurry up' to myself..."

"You've got a point." Saki couldn't help from smiling.

She arced around VVV I's immobile body, launching Spindle Knuckles at Dorssian ships that edged too close in their strafing runs. Saki gritted her teeth in annoyance. Carmilla wasn't the best at defense; her superior mobility was squandered having to stay near a fixed point, and there really wasn't much she could do against enemy projectiles other than try to intercept them with hard light trails. She managed to get most of them, focusing on the more damaging missiles and energy beams, but a few mass driver pellets were still getting through and buffeting poor Haruto. Inuzuka-senpai was locked down by the heavier fire of the cruiser, and where was Yamada...?

A quick scan of the starfield showed Saki that Nobu Lightning was bobbing around deeper in the Dorssian line, engulfed in a furball of Dorssian fighters.

_'No help from the idiot, then... What to do?'_

"Rukino-san! Inuzuka-senpai! Do a switch!" Haruto yelled.

"Like a tag team!" Saki blurted happily. It wasn't every day she got to put that bit of vocabulary to use!

"Gotcha!" Inuzuka-senpai curled VVV V towards her, latching onto VVV I and manuvering to bring its shields up against the flak swarming Haruto. "The big one's all yours!"

Saki was left facing down with the cruiser. Blue and yellow streaks of weapons fire continued to flash towards Haruto's position behind her. That would never do.

"Keep your eyes on me!" She yelled, gunning her multi-leg spine and streaking past the belly of the Dorssian cruiser. As she passed, she lashed out with both Spindle Knuckles, carving a pair of deep grooves along the length of the ship, and as she flew out behind it, chains of secondary explosions blossomed along the cut portions. The cruiser's guns paused for a moment, and then opened up on her.

"Nothing like a little personal interaction to get the audience's attention!" Saki laughed-and then squealed as Carmilla shuddered under a hit.

_'Keep your head on straight, girl!'_ She'd nearly bitten her tongue.

* * *

Chamca surveyed the troops ready for deployment in the personnel bay of his custom Ideal. Twenty-four soldiers. Three technicians. Two sappers. Sixteen men for each of the two armored shuttles onboard, counting himself, A-drei, and H-Neun. Room to take six prisoners. Ideally he wanted two scientists, two nascent students, and two actualized pilots... but he'd take whatever he could get his hands on. The drill was mounted and ready to go. Perfect.

He tapped his earpiece. "Kriem. Give me an update."

His adjunct's voice came over the feed. "The red Valvrave has stopped moving as you predicted. It has been inactive for 34 seconds at... mark."

96 seconds left in its charging and firing sequence. It wouldn't hurt to go over it again. He'd hand-picked the men before him for ability and loyalty, but Karlstein graduates they were not. It would be inconveniant to have those imitations on the module playing possession games with his boarding party, if they were capable of such a thing.

"Stay in your two-man groups once we board the module. Immediately report all physical contact with the enemy crew. If you see any lone friendlies, use the callsign. If they do not give the appropiate countersign they are to be treated as hostile. ESPECIALLY if they appear to be injured."

If the men wondered at his unconventional orders, they gave no sign.

"BLITZENDEGEN!" He saluted them.

"BLITZENDEGEN!" His men yelled back, saluting him as one.

81 seconds left. He began to squeeze through the cramped corridor towards the front of the Ideal, putting on his helmet as he went. He passed A-drei and H-neun in their alcoves, entered the cockpit and settled into his chair, glad he'd had the forethought to have the standard-sized pilot seat replaced with a larger model. Chamca preferred larger, physically imposing hosts as a general rule, but he had to admit size had its drawbacks at times. He checked the pre-flight sequence for the drill. The liquid pressure in tank 4 was a bit low, but within tolerances.

36 seconds left. He opened a communications link to the bridge. "Kriem, you have command of the _Obersturm_. Begin Operation Vogelfanger."

"Yes, Colonel Cain." Over the comm, Kriemhild raised her voice as she relayed his orders to the bridge crew. "Begin Operation Vogelfanger! Ideal squadrons, Piedra del Sol squadrons, standby for launch!"

18 seconds left. Chamca took a deep breath of the slightly ozone-scented air inside his helmet, savoring his host body's rush of adrenaline. In his mind's eye, he pictured the Valvrave starting up its ridiculous main firing sequence. Oh, those JIORans...

It sure was good to be back in the field.

* * *

Carmilla whirled away from the Dorssian cruiser, her Spindle Knuckles coming to rest on her shoulders. Saki looked down at her console, which showed her comfortably far from overheating, at 42/100.

The cruiser, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. It was covered in gouges and alight with superheated plasma flames. The upper deck of its double wings was sheared off, and it was listing badly as it vented plumes of atmosphere.

She just didn't have anything heavy enough to take it down properly. Sometimes she envied VVV I its heavy equipment... although it wasn't anywhere near as stylish as Carmilla.

_'Ah, sorry, Carmilla! I shouldn't think that way. You're all the robot a girl needs!'_

"Harakiri Blade done charging! Look out!"

Then again, maybe she didn't need to take down the cruiser.

Saki slammed on her controls and Carmilla kicked away from the cruiser. Behind her came VVV V, a fleeing blue figure with golden beetle wings. The enemy units were converging around VVV I, hammering at it uselessly; the weapons fire melting away before the light pouring from the Valvrave. An especially ambitious Waffe landed on VVV I's chest, and then took off a moment later, its surfaces that had been in contact with VVV I slagged with heat.

An Ideal fired its claw at her as she passed. She smashed the claw apart and kept going.

The light shining from behind her intensified as the Harakiri Blade went off. She switched to her rearview display for a quick peek. The cruiser she'd been dancing with split in two, the cut edges burning away as white-hot vapor into space for a moment before the two halves merged back together in one enormous explosion.

The ships of the Dorssian fleet puffed into bursts of light as VVV I's shining finger swept across them. Saki found herself cheering. Yamada's voice came over the comm, distorted with static. "You bastard! Watch where you're swinging that thing!"

"I said to look out!" Haruto said. "Not my fault you didn't dodge!"

"I DID dodge! You think you can catch the great THUNDER with an attack like that?"

Saki smiled, tuning out their chatter and allowing her body to relax. It was weird how the post-battle glow of victory felt so very much like the glow of satisfaction from finishing up a good show.

_'Ah, how nostalg-'_

Shrieks of fear rang out over the comm. Startled, she spasmed involuntarily in her seat, her hands clawing roughly at the controls. Carmilla jerked sporadically as her groping fingers hit random keys, one of her leg thrusters firing and sending her into a nauseating spin. The voices on the comm were speaking words, but she couldn't understand them, just a random babble of sound.

_'WHAT, WHAT'S HAPPENING, WHAT?'_

She wrestled Carmilla out of her spin, quashed down on the panic that fluttered in her chest. Her heart was thudding roughly in terror, completely different from the excited pumping of just a few moments ago. She shot a quick look back at the module. A cloud of debris was mushrooming from the main hanger at the bottom of the module, bits of metal glittering as they spun into the sunlight. Suddenly the confused shouts coming over the comm made sense, weren't just white noise.

"It's an Ideal!"

"They're in the hanger bay!"

"Boarders! The enemy's boarded us!"

At the same time, a pair of Ideals roared towards them from below, already vomiting swarms of Waffe slave units. Beneath them further was another Dorssian cruiser.

Saki steeled herself for battle again. The combat high from earlier had vanished abruptly in the spurt of panic, leaving behind a vague nausea in her belly and a weird involuntary shiver that ran along her arms in fleeting feather-light strokes. But before she could steer Carmilla towards the new enemies, Haruto spoke over the comm, his voice steely.

"Rukino-san! Take me back to the module!"

Although Haruto's words rang with tension, hearing his voice calmed her nerves somehow. "Got it!"

Carmilla grabbed onto the unmoving VVV I and started hauling it back towards the module. Explosions blossomed behind her as Nobu Lightning and VVV V engaged the Ideals. As her nerves settled, something suddenly occured to her. She opened a private channel to VVV I.

"Haruto, what are you going to do once you get to the module?"

"...I'll go on board, get in touch with L-Elf and have him use me to fight those boarders. It's not like Unit One is any use right now."

"What about the emergency cooling system Sensei was telling us about earlier? Can't we use that?"

"No good. We'd have to get to the hanger controls to use it, and Command said the Dorssians are in the hanger bay."

They were nearly at the module now. Saki changed Carmilla's trajectory slightly so they were headed for a point along its equator. "I'll have to bring you to one of the airlocks on the sides then. Otherwise I'd just be delivering you to the Dorssians."

"Right."

They were there. Carmilla pushed VVV I lightly against one of the support struts on the outside of the module, hooking its arm around the strut carefully.

_'There, that should keep you from drifting off...'_

In the camera feed on her console, Haruto was undoing his seat harness. Saki reached behind her shoulder to do the same. "I'm coming with you."

_'No way I'm letting you go in there alone.'_

"No. You'd be more useful piloting Carmilla and keeping any more boarders from landing, Rukino-san."

That stung. She knew he was right, but somehow it felt like rejection. It wasn't the time or the place for it, but she couldn't stop herself from answering back.

"Fine. I'll stay! But what's with that, anyway? 'Rukino-san, Rukino-san?'"

"Huh?"

"You keep calling me 'Rukino-san!' Aren't we supposed to be engaged?"

"Oh... Right... Uh, Saki... chan?"

"SAKI."

"Saki."

She blew out a breath.

_'A little better.'_

Haruto was climbing out of his cockpit and jetting to the airlock entrance. Saki gave him a thumbs-up sign he couldn't see. "Haruto, stay safe."

He paused in the entryway and smiled at her over his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm an indestructible superhuman."

The airlock door closed and he was gone.

* * *

Mikhail ran down the corridors of Module 77, heading for the junction on deck 11 he'd designated as a rally point. Once he reached it he would take command of the defense forces gathering there and use them to repel the boarding party. The boarders had not been entirely unexpected, although he had been hoping to avoid such a situation. The defense force he'd organized from the students was poorly drilled, untrained and unblooded, and while they outnumbered the troops a single Ideal could bring to bear, they were sure to take massive casualties in direct confrontation with trained and experienced soldiers.

_'Morale will be a problem. Should use hit and run tactics, avoiding unnecessary casualties and take advantage of the terrain.'_

He ran through the list of possibilities in his head.

_'This is no regular Navy force. The most likely commander is A-Drei, for his knowledge of the module's layout. Second likely is X-Eins, for his tactical ability.'_

_'If A-Drei, he will not be as sentimental having failed in his last attempt to take the module. His plan will most likely be to use the drill to bypass all security measures, and take control of the module surface. He will not know that the students no longer use the school as a command center, and thus his control of the surface will be largely meaningless, except to allow him use of guerilla tactics. If he attempts to harden the campus buildings against infantry attack, the Valvraves can be brought into the dome to attack his positions from the air.'_

_'The immediate solution is to launch simultaneous hit-and-run attacks on A-Drei's position as he advances behind the drill from multiple decks. Turn it into a killing ground.'_

_'If X-Eins, he-'_

"L-Elf! The drill is spreading some kind of poison gas!" Renbokoji screamed over his earpiece.

"Poison gas? Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

Mikhail felt a thrill of fear as the implication of the brazen action sank in.

"So much for the New Guinea Agreement, huh? You always did use any means to your end, Cain."

"Huh?" Renbokoji continued to babble over the line. "What do we do about the gas? The gas?"

"I'll handle it." Mikhail said. "Stand by for further instructions."

"Ah, un-understood."

Cain Dressel was here. That changed it all. For a moment, Mikhail felt like a child again, afraid and unsure of his actions. Could he win against the man who taught him everything he knew?

He swept the feelings of uncertainty aside, buried it under the emotional control that was part of his training. Yes. He would win. He had to. What else had he been doing for the past seven years if not practicing for this moment?

_'I knew this day would come. Time to meet it headlong.'_

But how to beat Cain?

Renbokoji's panic aside, what TO do about the gas? The contaminated areas belowdeck would be sealed off automatically by the module's environmental controls as soon as the gas was detected. All passages leading into the interior of the module from the surface were fitted with redundant airlocks, in case of a massive breach of the dome. The non-combatant students would have all evacuated from the surface to their designated shelters by now, and even the person he had come to think of as the 'Watcher' couldn't be crazy enough to stay, whatever psychological problems she had.

_'With recycling, the air belowdecks should be sufficient to last until we can secure a resupply on the moon. Cain must know this as well. Therefore I can conclude that the drill is meant as a diversion, to focus the attention of the defenders while Cain accomplishes his real purpose.'_

And that real purpose would be...

_'Up to this point, the enemy objective has been to obtain the Valvrave. There is no reason to believe this objective has been changed. There are four perfectly good Valvraves outside, yet Cain planned an operation to attack the module directly. Is his target Unit Six?'_

He tapped his earpiece to activate his link to the bridge. "Renbokoji Satomi."

"Ah! L-Elf! Yes! I mean, no! Renbokoji-senpai isn't here!" It was a female student, one he could not immediately identify.

Where had Renbokoji gone? No matter. "Use the module's internal transport grid to move Valvrave Unit Six out of dry dock, to... Grid 1C, Deck Two."

_'Let's see you find that, Cain.'_ Deck 2 was far enough away from the hanger than a systematic search would take a long time to discover VVV VI. Yet Grid 1C was near enough to the drill's path that it should be flooded with gas as the drill passed. Even with sealed spacesuits, there would be an innate psychological aversion to send troops into those areas, and thus they would likely be searched last.

"O-okay! Moving Valvrave Unit Six!"

"Well done," he encouraged the female student. It was important to maintain civilian morale at times like this. "Stand by for further instructions."

"T-thank you, L-Elf, sir!"

That done, he turned his mind back to Cain.

_'How to remove Cain from the module?'_ That was the tricky part.

Mikhail decided he would not take the student defense force into combat against Cain. Cain simply had too many advantages on that front. A realistic examination of their abilities showed that Cain should be superior to himself in battlefield command, having far greater experience, and possibly greater planning ability. That coupled with his superior troops meant that any armed encounter should be avoided.

_'It comes to a battle of information in the end. How much does Cain know? What doesn't he know? What irregularities are there that he can not possibly account for, which I can exploit?'_

The biggest glaring irregularity, the same one that had downed him, of course. The body-snatching Valvrave pilots.

Even if A-Drei reported that he'd shot the pilot of VVV I repeatedly without killing him. Even if Cain didn't dismiss his report as a result of battlefield confusion, or that he'd simply missed Tokishima's vitals. Even if Cain worked out somehow that the pilots were immortal freaks. There was still no possible way he could conclude from that information that the pilots could ALSO possess people that they bit. It was absurd, after all.

But that card simply wasn't on the table. He was in the module. The four pilots were all outside. Would it be possible to send a student to VVV VI now, to make a new pilot? He started to go through his list of candidates in his head, simultaneously reaching for his earpiece so he could have VVV VI moved to a location near the students-

His cell phone rang. Tokishima Haruto.

He answered it, taking in Tokishima's terse explanation. Luck was on his side, it seemed. An incredibly stupid move on Tokishima's part, to abandon his Valvrave and return to the station, but a fool's luck was better than nothing at all. He needed everything he could get if he was to challenge Cain.

"Tokishima Haruto. I will meet you at Grid 3G, Deck 62. We're going to retake the hanger bay."

* * *

"Goddamn you cowardly Dorssian dogs! Come on, FIGHT ME!" Yamada yelled over the comm.

The Dorssians were up to something, and Saki didn't like it. The two Ideals had come on strong at the beginning, but now they were backing off whenever the Valvraves approached them, preferring to sent their slave Waffe units out instead. She sliced another one of the unmanned fighters apart with a Spindle Knuckle, and boosted towards the Ideal that had launched it. Predicably, the Ideal matched her manuvers and launched another pair of Waffe her way.

"Rukino-san, Thunder, let's see what happens if we all go after one of them." Inuzuka-senpai said. "There's something weird going on."

"You think they're up to somethin'?" Yamada seemed to have finally caught on.

"Roger!" Saki nodded. "I'll pick off the Waffe, you guys go ahead and-"

"Poison gas!" Renbokoji's panicky voice came over the comm. "Valvraves, the drill is pumping some kind of poison gas into the module! You guys need to get back here and stop it!"

"Poison gas?!" Yamada was outraged. "That's low, even for assholes like you!"

"If we don't do something, everyone's gonna die!" Saki yelled. "We have to stop that drill at all costs! Let's head for the hanger!"

"I'll cover you, Rukino-san! Yamada, you get the rear!" Inuzuka-senpai ordered.

"Roger!" Carmilla turned and flew towards the module.

"Got it!" Yamada fired his cannons at the cloud of Waffe chasing them.

As Carmilla drew near the module, Saki could see a pair of glowing lights hovering near the hanger entrance. She punched up a zoomed in view on her console. The lights turned out to be a pair of Ideals, backlit by blazing orbs of light carried in ramshackle scaffolds mounted to their rears.

_'New toys for the Dorssians, is it?'_

Saki slowed Carmilla down to have a look. The last time she'd gone charging in against a new Dorssian innovation she'd been locked down by those boomerang strips and turned into nothing more than a burden on Haruto.

_'Nuh-uh. Not letting that happen again.'_

Yamada, not having the benefit of hindsight, charged ahead of her and the naturally cautious Inuzuka-senpai, letting out a loud battle cry as he did so.

"Dammit, Yamada, don't break formation!" Inuzuka-senpai yelled in frustration.

"IT'S THUNDER!" Yamada's Nobu Lightning blazed ahead in a streak of yellow. Within moments the multi-armed Valvrave was still, crushed and overheated between two Waffes as Yamada's outraged cries rang out over the comm.

"Irons?! Is that how it works?"

_'Waffle Irons?'_

More of the slave Waffes with the glowing brands on their shields launched from the two modified Ideals, forming a wall between Valvraves and module. And behind them, the two Ideals approached with their own slave Waffe swarms.

* * *

Haruto listened carefully as L-Elf explained the plan to him.

"Once you get control of an enemy body, take it behind enemy lines. Possess the highest ranking officer you can find, and try to issue orders to cause confusion. Your ultimate target should be Colonel Cain Dressel, the man in charge of the operation. He's very tall, has blond hair, and wears an eyepatch. If you can take control of him, you can order the enemy to recall the drill."

_'Saki would probably be better at this with her acting ability... But I'll do what I can.'_

L-Elf continued. "Once your infiltration begins I'll stage a diversionary attack to try and give you some openings. Be sure to take advantage of any opportunities you see. The lives of everyone on the module is in your hands, Tokishima Haruto."

"Got it!" Haruto nodded.

L-Elf nodded back, and then took off down the corridor. Haruto followed, trying to keep up.

They turned two corners, descended a flight of stairs, and then two Dorssian soldiers were right there, wearing blue and white spacesuits, their helmets removed. Haruto ducked behind one of the airlock doors along the corridor and watched L-Elf work.

The soldier on the left died right away, his throat exploding in a splatter of gore as L-Elf's bullet tore through it. The other soldier lifted his rifle and squeezed off a few shots, but none connected with the blur that was L-Elf. L-Elf was on him immediately after, knocking his feet out from under him with a leg sweep. The soldier lashed out desperately with his arm as he fell, but L-Elf sidestepped the blow and precisely chopped the soldier across the neck with the side of his palm. The soldier crashed to the ground, coughing and clutching at his throat with one hand, his other hand still holding his rifle-until L-Elf kicked the gun out of his grasp.

Taking the cue, Haruto rushed forward. L-Elf moved smoothly out of his way, and he flung himself on the stunned Dorssian soldier, who was pushing himself up on his arms. Even dazed, the soldier was much stronger than him, and Haruto scrabbled awkwardly at the man's head and upper body, trying to get his teeth to the neck.

The soldier buckled and nearly won free, so Haruto smashed him across the mouth in desperation with the armored forearm of his flight suit. The Dorssian jerked, his head sagging for a moment, long enough for Haruto to bury his face in the man's neck and sink his fangs into his flesh.

* * *

And then Haruto was the Dorssian soldier, struggling to breathe through his bruised throat, his blood coppery on his tongue from his cut lips. His own former body slid bonelessly off him as he pushed himself up on one arm, looking up at L-Elf standing over him.

"Tokishima Haruto. Are you in control?" L-Elf extended a hand down to him.

"Yeah." He croaked. His voice was broken and hoarse. He tried again.

"Yeah." Better this time. He took L-Elf's hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

L-Elf studied him for a moment, then took him by the shoulder. "Hold still, Tokishima Haruto." With a soft snikt, L-Elf's knife was in his hand, and he made a slash through the material of Haruto's spacesuit, cutting a furrow in his flesh.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Haruto jerked his arm out of L-Elf's hands.

"The more visible wounds you have, the less suspicious they'll be of you." L-Elf said. The blood was running from the stinging cut, staining the material of the flight suit. Haruto could feel it running down over his arm, warm and slippery. "Try to make it seem like you don't have full use of that arm."

"Got it." Haruto let his 'injured' arm dangle.

"Head toward the hanger." L-Elf picked up the dead soldier's rifle and began to check it. "You should run into more of their perimeter guards before you get there. I'll follow at a distance. Once you're behind their lines I'll start my diversion."

Haruto nodded, picked up the other rifle, and set off for the hanger at a light run. His breath caught harshly in his bruised throat, but he ignored it as best he could. After a few dozen meters down the corridor, he looked back, but L-Elf was nowhere to be found.

_'I guess it wouldn't work if I could see him following me.'_

He rounded another corner and there were another two soldiers. Both brought up their rifles at the sight of him, and then relaxed when they saw his uniform, although they kept their guns trained on him. He ran up to them, noting that their faces were set in a strange mixture of caution and... expectation?

_'What would a soldier say in this situation?'_

Haruto tried to imitate what he thought a soldier's field report, pleased with how the rasp of his bruised throat hid the uncertainty in his voice. "I made contact with the enemy at Grid 2D, Deck 63! There were a dozen hostiles that I cou-"

The two soldiers exchanged a brief glance at each other, and then looked back at him. One of them held up a hand to cut him off. "Wait."

_'Oh, shit.'_

The soldier that spoke fixed him with a determined gaze. "Niere."

They weren't buying it. Haruto thought briefly about raising the gun in his 'uninjured' hand and attacking them. But he was certain that if he made any hostile moves, they would immediately shoot him. What to do?

"Niere!" The soldier said again, and Haruto could see the man's face harden as he came to some decision.

_'Gotta trust L-Elf. He's never failed before. Gotta do my part. Gotta stick to the plan.'_

Haruto slowly bent down under the soldier's hard gaze, making sure to make no sudden moves. He put his rifle on the floor, then slowly straightened and raised his hand in salute. "Blitzendegen!"

The soldier shot him.

The bullet hit him in the abdomen, doubled him over, and threw him onto the floor. He instinctively clapped his hand over the blazing pain in his belly. Above him, one of the Dorssians was shouting into a handheld communicator, and the other-the one who shot him-was levelling his gun at Haruto's face.

Shots rang out, and Haruto flinched, sure that he was dead. But it was the soldier holding the gun pointed at him who fell, and the other soldier, still yelling into his communicator, collapsed a moment later. Feeling strangely calm, Haruto levered his upper body upright with his elbows, taking a look down the corridor from the direction he had come.

L-Elf charged down the corridor, stooping near him and dragging him against the wall. He checked Haruto's pulse, then took Haruto's hands, which had slipped off his abdominal wound without Haruto noticing somehow, and placed them back over the bleeding hole in Haruto's belly.

"Stay prone and press down tightly." L-Elf instructed. "This body is badly injured and going into shock. Wait for me here, I'll be right back."

Haruto watched L-Elf quickly run off again, back in the direction he'd come from. His limbs were growing cold and he felt strangely distant.

_'Press down... right.'_ He pressed down on his wound as L-Elf had ordered. It was strangely difficult to do so, even though his wound didn't hurt nearly as much as it used to. Instead of pain now, mostly he felt cold.

_'That's odd. Are the module's environmental controls malfunctioning again? That's no good, Rukino-san and Takahi-senpai will be fighting again. I should do something about it.'_

It was too much effort to get up, though. When his hands slid off his stomach again he just let them flop to his sides. Time passed, and Haruto grew colder. At some point, he looked up to see L-Elf standing in front of him again, with his original body slung over his back. He had a moment of confusion. If he was Tokishima Haruto, who was the person L-Elf was carrying?

L-Elf laid Haruto's... original body down next to Haruto and spoke, his voice urgent. "Tokishima Haruto, your host body is bleeding to death. It seems your regenerative abilities don't work outside of your own body. You need to bite your body and get back into it." He took Haruto's original body's hand and brought it to Haruto's mouth.

Haruto looked at L-Elf in confusion. His vision was curdling and darkening around the edges and it took all his effort to focus on L-Elf's voice. His mouth was dry and he licked his lips. "Bite myself... why...?" It seemed so silly. All he wanted to do was sleep.

L-Elf blew out a breath and hesitated a moment before speaking again. "Sashinami Shoko asked you to do it."

_'Shoko, huh...'_

Well, if it was Shoko. It still seemed silly to Haruto, but he'd humor her. He loved her, after all.

Haruto opened his mouth obediantly, and L-Elf stuffed the hand he was holding into Haruto's mouth. He bit down, softly at first, and then harder, feeling the skin break under his teeth.

* * *

Haruto sucked in a breath, his eyes snapping open.

Beside him lay the body of the Dorssian soldier he'd just been in, panting shallowly, skin pale, his lower torso soaked in blood. A sudden jolt of adrenaline shot through him and he leapt to his feet away from the soldier, yelping.

"Waaaugh!"

"Get a grip, Tokishima Haruto! They got a message off; we need to retreat!" L-Elf said urgently.

Haruto gulped down air. For some reason, nearly dying in the body of the Dorssian soldier had rattled him more than the times he'd been killed in his own body. The first time he'd been killed, it had gone so quickly he hadn't really understood what was happening, and the next few times he'd been secure in the knowledge of his own immortality. But now, watching the Dorssian gasp out his last breaths at his feet, he-

"Tokishima Haruto!" L-Elf hissed.

_'Get it together, Haruto!'_

Haruto nodded. "Right, let's go!"

Before they could move, they were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps from the direction of the hanger, echoing down the corridor. L-Elf took off running the opposite way, Haruto following. But they hadn't gone a dozen feet when another knot of Dorssian soldiers rounded a corner in front of them. They were trapped.

There was a sharp crack of gunfire. At Haruto's side, L-Elf's pistol leapt out of his hand to clatter to the floor behind them. Haruto gaped at the Dorssian soldier that had made the shot, a huge eyepatched man in an ornate dress uniform who towered over the rest of the soldiers. The man held up his left hand to signal the soldiers behind him to stop, and then beckoned towards L-Elf, a thin smile playing across his lips.

_'That's him, that's gotta be the Colonel L-Elf was talking about!'_

L-Elf charged forward, a silver-haired blur. He and the Dorssian Colonel exchanged a flurry of blows, too quickly for Haruto to make sense of. L-Elf aimed a kick towards the Colonel's midsection, but the Colonel knocked L-Elf's foot aside, smashed his fist into L-Elf's face, and then grabbed the nape of his neck and slammed L-Elf into the wall face first. L-Elf dropped like a sack of bricks, the Colonel aiming a kick at his prone form.

Haruto rushed the Colonel. If he could just bite the guy while he was preoccupied with L-Elf...

The Colonel turned faster than Haruto thought possible, sweeping an arm towards him. Haruto bit down desperately, but all he got was a mouthful of floppy sleeve. The Colonel's leg lashed out against his, and then he was flying, spinning through the air, crashing down in a heap on his back with enough force to drive all the air out of his lungs.

The Colonel's foot crashed down on his solar plexus, and a gush of stinging bile filled Haruto's mouth. He doubled up, coughing and hacking. When he managed to look up again, the big Dorssian was pointing a pistol down at him.

"Let's see what Iteration you are," the Colonel said, his single blue eye jovial as he stared down.

-BAM BAM BAM!-

Haruto jerked in agony as the the three tightly-grouped rounds crashed into his chest, smashing through his sternum and obliterating his heart. He was vaguely aware of his limbs thrashing spasmodically as the darkness took him.

* * *

Saki was the only one left.

Inuzuka-senpai had gone down a few seconds ago, crushed between two of the Waffe Irons. Both the Ideals and their remaining Waffe payload were focused on her now, and she had her hands full dodging away from the Waffe Irons' persistant passes. Most of the Waffe Irons were deployed in staggered rows between her and the module. The only caveat was that as long as she stayed well back, they let her mostly alone, with only the foremost Waffe Irons trying to ram into her.

_'If it comes down to attrition, I can keep Carmilla's heat down and pick off Waffe Irons from the edges of the formation. Those Ideals'll run out eventually... but what about the poison gas?'_

And how was Haruto doing on the module? Her requests to Command for information netted no answers; all she had been told again and again was that L-Elf was 'handling' the drill. And that from Takahi-san. Renbokoji-senpai, it seemed, wasn't even on the bridge anymore.

_'Attrition's not an option. I need to get back to the module!'_

As Saki eyed the shifting mass of Waffes on her tactical display, she saw a thin path opening up. Nothing much, just a few Waffes off to one side slightly out of position. It wasn't an opening that any other Valvrave could have exploited... But Carmilla wasn't just any Valvrave.

"Here we go, Carmilla!"

The moment she saw the path, she slammed down on her thrusters. All six legs of Carmilla's Multi-Leg Spine opened up at full throttle, sending her soaring through space. She passed the first few Waffe Irons, the white unmanned fighters trying desperately to match her manuvers but failing. She kicked away from one Waffe approaching her, spun past another, slipped past a third with mere meters to spare. The module loomed ahead, growing steadily larger-

-And Saki screamed as Carmilla jolted suddenly. She slammed forward in her seat, her flight suit crushing painfully against her chest as the restraints connected to her upper back ate her inertia. All her forward momentum was gone; she was being pulled back, away from the module. It took her a moment to realize that Carmilla was in the clutches of an Ideal's claw and being reeled in towards the bug-shaped vessel. This close up to it she could see the blue flames painted across its hull.

_'Did he plan this?'_

Saki kicked herself mentally. She hadn't been looking for the Ideals, just the Waffe Irons, and in retrospect the 'path' she thought she'd found was meant to funnel her towards the Ideal that had her in its grip.

A moment later she was jolted again, and a rending crash of metal on metal nearly deafened her as Carmilla was smashed between two Waffe Irons, overheat alarms shrieking into the cockpit. The thermal gauge on her control panel shot up, 36, 37, 38...

The thrust on the pair of Waffe Irons crushing against Carmilla was uneven, and Carmilla tumbled through space. As she spun, she could see the blue flame Ideal moving off, her defeat clearly already a forgone conclusion in the pilot's mind.

_'I'm not done yet, you bastard...'_

As Carmilla spun back to point at the module, Saki hit her thrusters again. The Waffes' feeble engines were no match for Carmilla's power, and she shot towards the module again on a stream of emerald green, still sandwiched between the Waffes. Saki wrestled with the controls, struggling to keep Carmilla flying straight, the squeal of metal rubbing on metal ripping through her helmet as the Waffes on her jostled to keep their position. Her thermal gauge climbed rapidly, 65, 66, 67...

The Waffe Irons remaining between her and the module flew towards her on intercept courses, but now that she was caught she had nothing to lose. One of them struck Carmilla at an angle and bounced away, sending her flying off at an angle to the right. She cursed and pressed down with all her might on her left foot, managing to correct her course but losing precious seconds. 78, 79, 80...

She won clear of the Waffe squadrons, the octogonal hanger opening yawning open before her. Bits of microdebris clanged against Carmilla's hull as she flew through the debris cloud, and then she just barely crashed through the opening, the Waffe on Carmilla's back scraping off against the top lip of the hanger's mouth. Her thermal gauge slowed, but continued to climb. 94... 95... 96...

_'Haruto, I'm coming!'_

Carmilla scraped briefly against the top of the launch tunnel before Saki could get her under control again. She looked back instinctively for a moment, seeing the dislodged Waffe vanish in a puff of purple fire behind her, and then looked back to the front, expecting to see the inside of the hanger bay at the end of the tunnel.

But what greeted her was a wall of dark gray metal-belatedly she realized that with the outer hanger door breached, the module would automatically close one of the backup doors spaced along the launch tunnel in order to keep atmospheric integrity inside the hanger-and Carmilla was about to crash into it.

Saki yanked desperately on her joystick. Carmilla brought up her left hand, ready to launch her Spindle Knuckle at the airlock door-just as her thermal gauge hit 100. With a electronic groan, Carmilla went still.

Saki threw up her arms reflexively as Carmilla smashed into the barrier, left shoulder first. She had an impression of enormous pressure, a rending shriek of tearing metal-

-and everything went black.

* * *

When Haruto came to, he was already restrained.

Hands cuffed behind his back. Ankles linked together by a short plastic twist. A length of cloth in his mouth and tied around his head made a simple but effective gag.

Two of the Dorssians had been dragging him by the heels down the corridor, but when he woke and started to move, they'd stood him on his feet and forced him along in small stumbling steps, the best his restrained ankles could allow. Up ahead walked L-Elf, spared the indignity of the gag and ankle restraints; he only had handcuffs. However, L-Elf's nose was swollen and purple and blood slowly trickled down his lower face.

It got easier when they reached the hanger and its zero-g environment. The Dorssians simply turned him and L-Elf around and dragged them by their handcuff chains. Haruto had plenty of time to look around as they flew across the hanger.

_'What a mess...'_

The hanger was filled with bits of debris from when the Dorssians had broken through the hanger door; rubble ranging from several-meters-long lengths of twisted metal to gravel-sized pebbles floated all around them. Here and there along the rubble were the still corpses of students: volunteers from the engineering crew under Kibukawa-sensei.

Haruto swallowed down bile. As far as he knew, the engineering crew hadn't been armed. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised; there was the poison gas, after all. But the naked display of Dorssian brutality still shook him.

It was slow going in the hanger. Haruto's captors had to pause to deal with debris, pushing away smaller pieces and detouring around larger chunks. By turning his head as far as it would go, he could see that they were making for a pair of boxy shuttles hanging in the middle of the hanger. Behind the shuttles squatted the Ideal that had brought the boarders, an ungainly pink and white insect with a fat abdomen.

_'Dammit, am I just helpless like this? There's gotta be something I can do!'_

He looked over at L-Elf, being dragged along in the same way as him. L-Elf's eyes were closed in the meditative state Haruto had often seen him in previously. The inexperienced observer might have thought he was taking a nap, although the effect was somewhat ruined this time by the sound of L-Elf's loud breathing through his open mouth as his breath wheezed through his broken nose.

_'L-Elf is coming up with a plan... everything will be alright...'_

But, that hadn't worked out very well for them just now, had it?

L-Elf had been so solidly dependable in the past. So capable. His predictions so flawless that it seemed like some kind of magic. Haruto still remembered vividly the chill that had gone down his spine when he'd look down to see the hand mike he was holding, back when he was playing at being ARUS' mouthpiece. But the disaster that had befallen them now meant that as capable as L-Elf was, he was NOT infallible.

No, that wasn't right. Haruto grimaced. It was easy to blame L-Elf. But the fault really lay with him, didn't it? He flashed back to the conversation with the Dorssian soldiers. Why had he said 'Blitzendegen?' It was obvious that they were looking for some kind of callsign. If only he'd been faster at thinking on his feet, he might have figured it out. And afterwards, when he'd gone up against the Dorssian Colonel. Here he was, cursed immortal, and his opponent just a man. All he needed to do was put one little nip into the guy to win the fight, and he'd botched it up.

Something had to change. He had to change. He realized suddenly that he was now the most negligent of the Valvrave pilots. Rukino-san practiced in Carmilla every day. Inuzuka-senpai and Yamada-san both attended L-Elf's volunteer boot camp, and Yamada-san trained at some kind of martial arts besides. What had he been doing, in comparision? Doing miscellaneous jobs around the module and attending Nanami-sensei's first aid classes? Sure, he'd had some resolutions, but they were half-baked ideas made on the spur of the moment. Save L-Elf's 'licht' girl? Rescue Shoko's dad? How would he even start with those? At least he'd taken responsibility for what he did to Rukino-san properly.

Everyone else had adjusted to their new circumstances, but he was still in denial, still pretending that nothing had changed, that he still had some kind of high school life. But as the softly tumbling corpses of students around him attested, that life was long over.

_'If I get through this, I'll need to get to work. I'm just holding everyone else back!'_

They had reached the shuttle. Haruto's captors hauled him upright, pushing him against the shuttle's rust-red hull. An aperture on the shuttle's side opened, and he briefly had a glimpse of Kibukawa-sensei and Otamaya-kun inside being watched by an armed soldier, as the Dorssians started to push L-Elf inside.

He was looking at L-Elf and past him, to the closed backup hanger door, when it happened.

The grey backup hanger door erupted inwards in a spray of sparks and twisted metal, sending debris spraying towards them. A pair of Dorssians stationed near the hanger door were hit with chunks of rubble before they could react and flung away from the point of impact. The soldier holding Haruto twisted away in surprise, leaving him momentarily free. He pushed away from the shuttle hull awkwardly with his elbow, briefly noting that L-Elf had taken advantage of the situation similarly; he had somehow gotten out of his handcuffs, incapacitated the soldier on him, and was wrestling with the armed soldier in the shuttle for his rifle.

There was a brief whoosh of wind as the atmosphere in the hanger started to vent out of the ruptured hanger door, and then that abated as yet another airlock closed further up the launch tunnel. Now that the initial cloud of debris had dissipated a little, Haruto could see an enormous green figure, sticking halfway out of the shattered hanger door.

_'RUKINO-SAN!'_

He expected the green Valvrave to start moving, to attack the Dorssians in the hanger. But it just lay inert. Looking closer, he could see the edges of the cooling fin on its chest glowing red-hot, and the air around it wavered with heat waves. Its left arm was gone below the elbow and the Spindle Knuckle on that side was nowhere to be seen.

_'Overheated?'_

Something closed around his ankles, and Haruto looked back to see a Dorssian soldier holding onto his legs. The soldier yanked, and he went reeling back towards the shuttle again.

* * *

Saki sucked in a sharp breath as consciousness returned.

Did she die? Or was she just knocked unconscious? She couldn't tell.

She was hanging awkwardly from her seat harness. The strap on the left shoulder of her flight suit that connected her to her seat had snapped. She hit the release on her right shoulder and detached from the harness, floating slightly off her seat, and looked around.

Carmilla had smashed through the airlock door and was currently lying in the hole she had made. Non-operational, of course. The thermal gauge on her console was ticking slowly down from 96. She wouldn't be going anywhere until the system reset at 0 heat. Ahead of her she could see the Dorssians, tiny blue and white figures swarming around two shuttles, and an unattended Ideal.

_'Oh, crap.'_

Five of the tiny figures were floating towards Carmilla. Saki looked around the cockpit in near panic, trying to figure out what to do.

_'Stay in Carmilla? No good. There's no telling if they'd break in before I could get moving again.'_

Her roving gaze found the tumbling body of a Dorssian soldier near Carmilla, killed either in the initial attack or Carmilla's breakthrough, she didn't know-and more importantly, the black bulk of the rifle, strapped to his spacesuit by combat webbing.

_'Make a fight of it?'_

She wasn't relishing the option. The last time she'd gone up against a Dorssian soldier... well, L-Elf, she'd woken up tied hand and foot with a piece of tape over her mouth. But the alternative was to let them dig her out of Carmilla like a frightened rabbit, and she couldn't have that.

_'It'll go better this time. It's gotta. I'll have a gun, so...!'_

No time to overthink it. Saki sucked in a breath, hit the open hatch control on her panel, and kicked up and through the opening. She looked around wildly, found the Dorssian corpse she had sighted earlier, and flew towards it using the compressed air jets on her flight suit.

Saki reached the body with time to spare, and ripped the soldier's rifle free of its webbing. Swinging around, she sighted on the approaching Dorssians, who had begun to spread out.

_'Safety, safety! Should have gone to L-Elf's class...'_

She fumbled with the slide that she hoped was the safety, pointed the rifle at the closest of the Dorssians with unsteady hands, and squeezed the trigger.

Unexpected recoil made the rifle leap in her hands, and all her shots at the soldiers missed.

The Dorssians' return fire didn't.

* * *

Haruto watched, sick to his stomach, as the tiny green figure that was Rukino-san shuddered and spasmed under the hail of bullets. The stolen rifle flew out of her hands and went spinning away.

"RUKINO-SAN!"

"RUKI!" Otamaya-kun screamed at the same time from behind him.

Sure, the bullets couldn't KILL her, but being shot HURT, as he knew from personal experience, and he didn't want any of his friends to suffer.

That was it then. The hope that Rukino-san would save them had been snuffed out. In the still-open shuttle, L-Elf had managed to overpower the Dorssian soldier. But the first soldier he'd downed had recovered and was holding Otamaya-kun hostage, pistol pointed to his head. The soldier and L-Elf now stood in an uneasy standoff.

Haruto himself was still in the clutches of another Dorssian, outside the shuttle, but the standoff inside couldn't possibly last. There was already another group of Dorssians heading over from the other shuttle, and the Dorssians who had downed Rukino-san were closing in around her still-twitching body.

_'There's gotta be something I can do! Dammit, what?'_

Nothing. He racked his brains for a solution. Nothing.

Just as Haruto was about to succumb to despair, he became aware of a whining drone from above, growing steadily louder.

He craned his head up to look, and was shocked to see the drill coming back down towards them.

For a moment, he thought it was part of the Dorssians' plans, but that couldn't be, because suddenly the soldiers around him were scattering, yelling muffledly behind their helmets in panic. L-Elf took advantage of the distraction, leaping forward and knocking away the gun held to Otamaya-kun's head. A moment later Kibukawa-sensei bulled into the soldier from the side and sent him spinning.

Alongside the drill came a purple Valvrave, bedecked with glowing green loops of light like a strange festive robe and holding an odd staff-like weapon. Two Waffes launched from the Ideal to engage it, and the purple Valvrave struck them with its staff. Moments later the Waffes seemed to go insane, ramming into each other and firing on each other with their mass drivers until they exploded into flames. The purple Valvrave continued its descent, unimpeded.

_'Unit Six? Who's piloting it?'_

VVV VI swooped down into the hanger bay proper, ignoring the small arms fire from several overambitious Dorssian soldiers. it extended one hand, and scythe-like claws unfurled from the tops of its fingers.

"Get out of the way!" L-Elf decked the soldier hovering over Haruto as he was staring up in shock at VVV VI. He turned Haruto around, grabbed him by the waist, and pressed the control for his air jets on his back, sending them flying in Carmilla's direction.

Behind him, Haruto watched as Kibukawa-sensei and Otamaya-kun spilled out of the shuttle, launching themselves on a course towards the top of the hanger. A moment later the clawed hand of VVV VI came down on the shuttle, ripping it apart like a wet paper bag. At the same time the drill crashed down into the Ideal, crushing it down into the hanger floor. The squeal of tortured metal nearly deafened Haruto, and then the Ideal exploded, taking the drill with it in an enormous purple fireball.

They had reached Rukino-san by then; she was still sucking down shuddering breaths as her body healed from its injuries. L-Elf reached out and snagged her by an arm as they passed, and they reached Carmilla a few moments later. L-Elf quickly hit the hatch release button and pushed Rukino-san in.

"Hold still." L-Elf said, and a pistol appeared in his hand. Haruto briefly had time to wonder where in the hell the weapon had come from before L-Elf was shooting out the chains on his handcuff and ankle cuffs. As soon as Haruto had his hands free, he reached up to rip the gag out of his mouth.

"Thanks." Haruto said, swallowing hard to moisten his dry throat. The cloth gag had been absorbing his saliva while it was in his mouth.

"Come on," L-Elf grabbed onto the lip of the opening and levered himself into the cockpit. "Get into Unit Four."

"S-she's Carmilla." Rukino-san groaned as Haruto and L-Elf piled into the cockpit. She was sprawled in the pilot's chair, still gasping for breath and rubbing at her eye through a hole in her helmet.

_'She looks like she's hurt bad,'_ Haruto thought, kicking off the top of the cockpit and moving to Rukino-san's side. Her flight suit was covered with bloody holes, and the faceplate of her helmet was shattered on the upper right side. Underneath, her hair and half her face were wet with blood. He winced in sympathy, his chest where he'd been shot recently seeming to ache. "Are you okay?"

"Yea. I think so. Indestructible s-superhuman, right?" Rukino-san gave him a pained smile. "You don't look so hot yourself. Wha, what'd you get hit by, a cannon?" She reached one hand out to his chest.

Haruto put his hand over the gaping hole in the chest of his flightsuit. "Some guy shot me a bunch of times. Not as many as you though."

"Trust me, it's not... something I want to make a competition out of." Rukino-san said dryly. "Anyway, about Carmilla..." She swept a hand towards the display panel.

Carmilla's thermal gauge was counting down slowly from 68. As Haruto watched, the number changed to 67.

"We're stuck here until it goes back down to 0. Talk about a flawed design, huh? Ah. Sorry, Carmilla." Rukino-san patted the side of her seat soothingly. "Look where we are, too."

Haruto floated next to Rukino-san's seat and looked around. They were in the first lock of the launch bay, and the walls were fitted with panels covered in small holes. "The emergency cooling system!"

"Talk about ironic, right?" Rukino-san was sitting up straighter in her seat now. "If only we could turn it on..."

"We'd have to turn it on from Hanger Control." Haruto nodded. "I'll go."

"Alright, be ca-"

The purple and green figure of VVV VI suddenly loomed up before them. It put its hands over Carmilla's head and shoulders, and rather roughly shoved them back through the busted airlock door.

"What in the-"

"What are they-"

VVV VI pushed Carmilla into a sitting position against two of the chamber's walls, and then tapped the wall with its staff. A glowing green spot appeared at the point of contact, and then green lines raced outwards from it, creating a crisscrossing pattern over the wall.

_'Is that hard light? What is it doing?'_

A moment passed, and then jets of supercooled liquid squirted from the holes in the walls, bathing Carmilla and VVV VI. As the liquid touched Carmilla, it evaporated into wreaths of vapor. Haruto watched as the thermal gauge rapidly dropped down to 0, and the display for Carmilla turned green-well, except for the missing parts of its left arm that stayed red.

"Alright!" Rukino-san said happily. "Carmilla's back in action!"

Haruto was confused. "How did they know to do that?"

Rukino-san shrugged. "Could be a member of the engineering crew." She checked her panel. "More like... comm was on. We've been broadcasting the whole time." She tapped the panel. "Hello? Carmilla to Unit Six, thank you! Uhm, who are you?"

There was no response. Not even a gesture from the purple Valvrave to show that the pilot inside heard the message. Instead, VVV VI floated over to the airlock, which hissed open to allow it passage. Without a backward glance, VVV VI disappeared through the door.

_'Not the talkative type, are they?'_

"How rude!" Rukino-san huffed, turning Carmilla to follow VVV VI.

"Wait a moment." L-Elf spoke up. "Our objective right now should be the elimination of Cain Dressel."

"Who?" Rukino-san wondered.

"That Colonel guy we ran into?" Haruto found himself reaching for the hole in his flight suit again.

"The man who planned and executed this operation," L-Elf told Rukino-san. "He's too dangerous to be allowed to escape."

"Alright. Where do we go?" Rukino-san asked.

L-Elf took up a position beside the pilot seat. "He should be back in the hanger, directing evacuation."

"Understood." Rukino-san pressed her feet down on her pedals, and with a faint whirr, Carmilla shouldered back through the shattered hanger door.

* * *

The scene that greeted Saki back in the hanger was chaos. The Dorssian forces were in disarray, scurrying around their one remaining shuttle, coming under fire from a group of armed students pouring into the hanger from the module above.

_'The student defense force!'_

The Dorssians didn't seem to be going anywhere. The smashed together and burning remnants of the Ideal and drill took up most of the space in the hanger and blocked their shuttle from the door. At the head of the student defense force was Kibukawa-sensei, his white lab coat flapping as he directed their advance.

"Not bad for a physics teacher," Haruto said from beside her, his tone mildly suspicious. Saki found herself agreeing. There was definitely something more to Kibukawa-sensei than he let on.

Where would this Dorssian leader be? Saki thought of checking the shuttle, but from the disorganized way the Dorssians were acting, that didn't seem likely. Was he on the Ideal when it blew up? Maybe he was already dead.

"There!" L-Elf jabbed a finger towards the viewscreen. "Kill him!"

Saki zoomed in on where L-Elf was pointing. A tiny figure in a dress uniform was floating near the wall of the hanger, far away from the fighting.

_'He's not doing anything... Just... looking at the wall.'_

She toggled her right joystick, bringing Carmilla's right arm up, intending to smash the Dorssian with her remaining Spindle Knuckle. It was overkill, but...

"But... he's defenseless!" Haruto protested.

"He's too dangerous!" L-Elf insisted.

Saki looked over at the two. L-Elf's face was set, resolute. Haruto's eyes were wide in horror at the prospect of outright killing an unarmed man, but even as she watched his eyebrows began to slide downwards, his mouth hardening as he worked towards acceptance.

_**Haruto's face was young and fragile in sleep, his head leaned back against the headrest of the bench. His brow was slightly furrowed, as if even now he couldn't let go of the worries that plagued him.**_

_'Even though he's not the one pulling the trigger, this will weigh on him. He can't help it. That's just how he is. Isn't that right, Haruto?'_

While Saki herself didn't have that much of a problem outright killing the unarmed Dorssian, she found she couldn't justify adding any more burdens to Haruto. She eased her finger off the trigger button.

"I'll take him alive. If I grab him with Carmilla, that'll be enough, right?"

L-Elf looked annoyed, but nodded. "Alright."

She shot a glance at Haruto. His face was relaxed in relief, his features softened. Good.

Saki turned her attention back to the floating Dorssian. She nudged Carmilla towards him, but the going was slow; she had to circle around the burning wreckage. Carmilla was only halfway across the hanger when something strange happened.

The cockpit filled with an odd sound. It reminded Saki a bit of the time when she visited the ocean back on earth as a little girl, like the bellow of waves crashing against naked rock. But this sound was organic, alive. The cadence rose and fell, and she had the distinct impression that it was speaking words, but words in a language no human could possibly pronounce.

"What is that...?" Haruto wondered.

"Dunno." Saki tapped the side of her helmet. It didn't seem to be coming from her helmet speakers. The cockpit speakers, maybe? "Not sure where it's coming from."

"Look!" Haruto pointed towards the viewscreen. Saki followed his finger, and her mouth dropped open when she saw what he was pointing at.

Across the hanger, the Dorssian was glowing.

Not with a glow like the sun or a light fixture, no. This light was a bright vivid green, and it blazed out of the Dorssian in a wave, forming a semi-translucent sphere around him. It looked almost like...

_'That's the same hard light that Carmilla uses!'_

Abruptly, the Dorssian took off from his floating position. The glowing green orb that contained him accelerated, zipping up into the shaft left by the drill, to a sealed hatchway one deck above the hanger, and smashed through it, leaving a perfectly round hole.

"What the hell?" Saki piloted Carmilla towards the the hole, cursing the bits of wreckage that got in her way. "Did you see that? What the hell was that?"

"That, that light!" Haruto stammered, apparently on the same page as her. "That's the same light as the Valvraves!"

Carmilla was at the closed hatchway. This close, Saki could see that the hole in the door hadn't been punched through as she'd thought at first. The edges were slagged and melted, as if the tiny ball of light had burned its way through. She slammed Carmilla's right fist into the hatchway door and it buckled. She hit it again, forcing the door edges away from each other, and then pushed Carmilla's hand through the gap, using the stump of Carmilla's left arm for leverage against the other door to force the two halves apart.

Beyond the hatchway lay a long chamber, lined on either side with huge transparent tubular containers. Within bubbled some kind of orange liquid, and in the liquid was suspended-

_'MORE VALVRAVES?'_

Unfinished Valvraves, Saki realized. The units in the tubes varied in completion, ranging from ones with missing limbs to ones that were just a head and collection of spare parts connected with wiring.

_'Why are they floating in those jars like that? Are they being GROWN somehow? Aren't they just robots? What in the hell is this room?'_

"More curses..." Haruto mumbled from beside her.

She was getting distracted! Belatedly, Saki wrenched her gaze from the partial Valvraves in their tanks, looking for the green orb of light she'd been chasing. There, at the far end of the chamber-

-The ball of light smashed into a tank set against the far wall, melting a hole in the transparent material of the tank. A wall of orange liquid rushed forth, quickly dissolving into globules and droplets in the zero-g chamber. Saki gunned Carmilla forward, but it was too late. The glowing figure of the Dorssian reached the Valvrave within, and slipped into the cockpit through its open hatch.

"I win, Cain." L-Elf said smugly from her side. "That unit isn't operational."

_'Oh, YOU win, do you?'_ Saki thought sardonically at L-Elf, taking a closer look at the Valvrave "Cain" had gotten into. Not only was it inoperational, it was incomplete as well; nobody had bothered to install limbs on the thing. It was actually almost cute. The stumpy limb stubs made it look a little like a baby bird...

Unexpectedly, the crest atop of the head of the limbless Valvrave blazed to life, and the thing crashed out of its tube, floating in the air before them.

_'Oh crap._' Saki leaned forward in her chair and took a tighter grip on her joysticks. It shouldn't have been possible. L-Elf had said only Sakimori students could pilot the Valvraves. But then again, the Dorssian turning into a ball of light and flying around the module shouldn't been possible either. She stared hard at the limbless Valvrave, trying to figure out what offensive capabilities it may have. Her display lit up with threat recognition warnings, identifying the unit as VVV II.

_'At least it's got no arms and legs, right? I've still got nine more-'_

Hard green light blazed from the stumps of VVV II, swirling around it violently in rushing torrents before settling and hardening into green crystalline limbs.

"OH, YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!" Saki yelled in exasperation.

"It grew limbs?" Haruto breathed from beside her.

"L-Elf! What now?"

No response from the Dorssian defector. She glanced over at him. He was holding his head and mumbling to himself, looking even more rattled than the last time all three of them had been in a cockpit together, when he'd been accused of being a traitor by his allies.

_'No help from L-Elf. Guess it's just me and Haruto.'_

And that was an idea that suited her just fine. With Haruto at her side, she could do anything.

She squared off against VVV II. Having grown its limbs, it was just standing there at its end of the room, looking at them.

"Waiting for me to lead, huh? That's as it should be!"

Saki pressed the trigger on her right joystick, sending Carmilla's remaining Spindle Knuckle flying at VVV II's face. The hijacked Valvrave brought one of its green arms up to block, the spinning knuckle biting into the crystalline limb with a loud squealing sound that set Saki's teeth on edge. She pressed her joystick forward, pressing her attack and forcing VVV II back several meters. With a sharp crunch, VVV II straightened its arm, sending the Spindle Knuckle spinning away to the side-but its arm shattered under the pressure, leaving behind a jagged stump.

"Not exactly a chart-topper, are you?" Saki whipped the Spindle Knuckle around, trying to slash it sideways into her opponent, but VVV II dodged away, and the Spindle Knuckle flew across the room wildly before reeling back onto Carmilla's arm.

She prepared herself for a counterattack, but there was still no real offensive reaction from VVV II. It just hovered there, staring blithely at her.

_'What is he, trying to figure out the controls?'_

It made sense. She'd known instinctively how to pilot Carmilla, as if the knowledge had been injected into her along with that shot that made her into a Kamitsuki. If this Cain didn't get the injection, then...

"I won't give you time to learn the steps!" Saki slashed her Spindle Knuckle at VVV II again. The enemy unit brought up its other arm to block this time, resulting in another shattered stump. Saki grinned as she pulled her Knuckle back in, preparing for a finishing strike.

She sent her Spindle Knuckle hurtling directly towards her opponent's face, her fingers poised to make any adjustments in case the armless Valvrave tried to dodge out of the way. No such movement was forthcoming though; the mech just hovered there as if made of stone.

Just as the Knuckle was about to strike its target, a gush of burning green poured out of the broken stumps of VVV II's arms. Saki had a brief glimpse of jagged crystal teeth lining the surfaces of the new appendages before they slammed shut on the spinning axle of her Spindle Knuckle like a crocodile's jaws. The Knuckle whirled uselessly, its cutting surfaces held bare meters from VVV II's face.

_'He can do that?'_ Saki pressed her joystick forward, trying to grind her Spindle Knuckle with sheer power into VVV II. The flickering bolt of green lightning connecting Carmilla's arm to the Knuckle glowed brighter, glimmering spangles of emerald flashing through the air. The Spindle Knuckle spun faster in VVV II's embrace, and she was rewarded with the sight of brighter green fracture lines forming in the stolen mech's new arms.

Saki jammed forward on her joystick as far as it would go. The Spindle Knuckle jumped forward, and there was a sudden explosion, purple flames and green waves of hard light bursting outwards. She leaned forward, eager to see the results-

-but what appeared as the explosion settled wasn't what she expected. VVV II had lost both its arms again, but there was no damage to its head or chest. And her Spindle Knuckle was... she picked out shattered shards of black and green, embedded in the walls and floor and floating in the air between them.

"No way..." Saki whispered. Her main weapon was-

"Are you quite finished?" A soft, quietly amused voice spoke over the comm. Saki glanced down at the display and saw that the icon for VVV II was lit up. Audio only.

"DAMN JIORANS!" Another voice spoke up over the comm, quivering with rage. For a moment Saki thought it was the unknown pilot of VVV VI, but no, the VVV II icon was still lit up.

_'He's got two people in there...?'_

VVV II suddenly flew forward towards Carmilla, its crystalline arms reforming as it came. Saki twitched Carmilla to the side, trying to dodge, but the hijacked Valvrave slammed into Carmilla, smashing a jagged fist into Carmilla's face.

Saki shrieked as the cockpit shook around her. Haruto and L-Elf were knocked against the cockpit wall and went sprawling. She swung Carmilla's right fist at VVV II, but VVV II trapped her single arm between its own and twisted, sending Carmilla flying over its shoulder and into one of the tanks lining the chamber walls. Shards of transparent alloy and globs of orange liquid spewed forth as Carmilla smashed through the tank and into the partially built Valvrave inside.

VVV II was coming at her again, not giving her a moment's respite. Saki grabbed onto the partial Valvrave from the tank with Carmilla's right hand, flung it into VVV II's face, and then followed it up with a roundhouse kick, aiming for the stolen mech's midsection.

VVV II ducked the flying Valvrave, bending down and bringing its hands in front of its torso, just in time to catch Carmilla's leg. It twisted, slinging Carmilla around and slamming her facefirst into the chamber's ceiling. Alarms blared in the cockpit and Saki was horrified to see dark jagged lines appear in the front of the cockpit feed as Carmilla's faceplate cracked under the impact.

"Not a bad attempt at distraction." The coolly amused voice of the Dorssian Colonel came over the comm again. "Creativity: Grade C. But overall combat effectiveness: E." The sound of shearing metal rang out as VVV II twisted Carmilla's leg, and the same leg went red on Saki's display console.

In near panic, Saki smashed down on the triggers for Carmilla's Multi-Leg Spine, trying to get away from the situation. Carmilla shuddered, the two center legs of her Spine kicking back against the Valvrave pinning her. A green disk of hard light formed between Carmilla and VVV II for an instant, and then VVV II exploded away from Carmilla, impacting the floor with such force that its lower left leg shattered apart and it was left sunk up to its hip in the metal.

_'I still have a weapon!'_

"Haruto, brace yourself!"

Haruto scrambled to wedge himself into a crook of the seat array as Saki spun Carmilla to face her opponent, and then activated all six thrusters on her Multi-Leg Spine. Cain's Valvrave was just starting to rise out of the crater it had formed when Carmilla smashed into it, rapidly accelerating towards full velocity.

Metal ripped and tore around them as they sheared through the deck, and then they were smashing through into the hanger once again. VVV II's back taking the full force of the impact into the hanger wall. All three of its remaining hard light limbs, less durable than its torso, ripped away as Carmilla shoved it through the hole.

Haruto and Saki were jostled in their positions, and L-Elf went slamming back against the rear of the cockpit. Saki shook off the daze of having her brains scrambled by the impact. Through the debris cloud of broken floor and green shards of disintegrating hard light limbs, she saw that VVV II was prone against the floor of the hanger, lying in yet another crater. As she watched, it shifted, and she hurriedly toggled her Multi-Leg Spine on again, using the thrust to press VVV II back down.

Saki wedged Carmilla's truncated left arm against VVV II's chest, and smashed her right fist into VVV II's head. Once. Twice. She drew back her fist for a third punch, pleased to see dark cracks spiderwebbing across the creased and dented armor plates on the left side of VVV II's face.

With a lurch, VVV II buckled beneath her, green light gushing from its shoulder stumps to form its arms again. This time the limbs were long, thin and distended, the arms of a tree-swinging ape, tipped with oversized club-like hands. It wrapped its overlong arms around Carmilla, reaching for the extra legs on her back.

"No you don't!" Saki screamed, punching VVV II in the face yet again. The stolen Valvrave's left eye went dark as its face deformed further. Part of its headcrest broke off, green hard light sparks leaking from the severed point. VVV II's hands wrapped around Carmilla's outermost sets of rear legs.

Saki brought Carmilla's fist down toward VVV II for a fourth and final blow to its face, but before the green Valvrave's hand could reach its target, a spew of hard light poured from the fold in VVV II's facial plating where its mouth should be, forming a shell of jagged emerald crystals around its head. Carmilla's fist slammed against the hard light armor-but the crystals didn't shatter; they cracked, but held firm.

VVV II's hands wrenched, ripping Carmilla's outermost two rear legs free from her chassis. New alarms blared into the cockpit as Saki cursed, drawing Carmilla's fist back for another punch. Even as she did so, she saw it would be useless: the crystals encrusting VVV II's face were repairing themselves, the jagged cracks in their facets smoothing out with new streaks of green hard light oozing from the mech's 'mouth.' She smashed Carmilla's fist into the stolen Valvrave's face anyway, but the result was the same as last time: the crystals cracked but didn't break. VVV II's hands grabbed onto another pair of Carmilla's legs.

_'How do I beat him? HOW?'_ Saki fought to keep herself from hammering on her controls in frustration. There had to be some way!

"Overheat him!" Haruto yelled from where he was braced against her seat.

"What? How?" Saki screamed back.

"He's a Valvrave! The same as us! If you rip off his cooling fin, he should overheat!"

"Right!" Saki reached down with Carmilla's hand to grab the unguarded spike jutting from VVV II's chest. "It's time to pay you back for those Waffe Irons!"

"Huh?" Haruto exclaimed in confusion.

No time to explain. Carmilla's fingers dug into VVV II's cooling fin. Metal and ceramic warped with a squeal under her digits, and she tugged backward, using the stump of Carmilla's left arm to brace against VVV II's torso. The fin came away in her hand, a shattered, useless mess, even as VVV II ripped another two legs from her Multi-Leg Spine. She was down to three functional legs in total now: two centermost on the spine and Carmilla's unmangled left leg.

_'That's still more thrust than you've got, I can just hold you here until you overheat-'_

"FUCKING HUMAAAANS!" The enraged bellow over the comm caught Saki completely by surprise. The sheer hatred in the voice made her falter for a moment, even as green flames blazed from VVV II's mouth, dissolving its mask of crystals and splashing squarely against Carmilla's front. The force of the blast overcame the thrust from her remaining legs, melting Carmilla's chest armor and sending her reeling back against the ceiling of the hanger.

Saki barely had time to recover from being slammed forward in her seat before VVV II was on top of Carmilla, stubby hard light legs forming to pin her down against the bulkhead. The stolen Valvrave loomed above her, the position all too familiar-

_**Haruto slammed her to her back on the hard-packed ground, the breath going out of her lungs in a rush. He loomed above her, silhouetted by the moon, the red slashes and his burning red eyes for a moment all she could see-**_

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Saki shrieked, her hands flying away from her controls, leaping to shield her against phantom assailants. The panicked motions didn't translate into any input for Carmilla, however, and the green Valvrave simply lay still.

VVV II brought its oversized fists together and smashed them down onto Carmilla's chest. The slagged chest armor shattered, and the inner cockpit walls actually cracked under the impact, showering Saki, Haruto, and L-Elf with bits of shrapnel, portions of the video feed flaring into static around the damage.

Saki huddled in her seat, struggling to fight off the unwelcome memories rushing through her head, her body refusing to obey her. She watched helplessly through the distorted cockpit feed as VVV II raised its clasped fists again-

_'So this is how it ends...'_

-And then VVV II abruptly sagged, the burning green light in its remaining eye and headcrest going dull, fading, its hard light limbs splintering and falling away. It slowly floated away from the prone Carmilla in the zero-g of the hanger, once more just the lifeless torso of an incomplete Valvrave.

* * *

Chamca stared down at his display board with something approaching dismay. The counter in the corner was rapidly ticking upwards, showing 140/666. It was easy enough to figure out what that meant.

_'Overheated.'_

Prue, not understanding the situation, was oscillating between spitting curses and shrieking incoherently, a ball of blazing light in his crystal container. His avatar on the display screen burned bright enough to force Chamca to squint his host's single eye. The excess expenditure of energy was wasted, however. All it did was send the the number on the console spiking upwards ever faster.

"Prue."

"WHAT!?"

"We're finished here. It's not very gentlemanly to damage a vessel on its maiden flight."

"...What?"

He couldn't expect Prue, newcomer to Earth that he was, to understand the joke after all. But the confusion served to cut through Prue's wrath a bit.

"We're leaving."

"But-but, I'm! We're so close! What about Pino!?"

"You can tell for yourself she's not here. We'll get her back some other time."

"I'm... I... I understand." Prue's glow died down as he acquiesced.

Chamca took another look at the green Valvrave, still immobile, wedged into the bulkhead. It seemed he had done enough damage to incapacitate the thing and it was no longer an immediate threat. Good enough. Now all he had to do was get his commandeered Valvrave out of the Module's hanger bay.

_'But how to extract my prize...'_

There was no way around it. Grimacing internally, he opened his host's mouth and began to sing another spell.

* * *

_'He overheated?'_

Saki tried to relax, to reach out and take Carmilla's controls again, but her body wasn't having any of it. The memory of the night before had been debilitating, much more so than the episode in her room that morning.

_'Get it together, girl! It's just lucky he didn't smash in and kill us all!'_

Slowly, her shaking hands extended. She'd just barely managed to rest them on her joysticks when the eerie ocean-grinding-against-rocks sound filled the cockpit again. A green aura flickered to life around the silent VVV II, extending outwards slowly from its chest and gradually enveloping the entire unit.

Saki cringed, bracing herself for an incoming attack, but no such attack came. Instead, VVV II turned, and flew away from the prone Carmilla, waddling through the air like a fat, ungainly bird at first, then gradually picking up speed. It made its way to the broken hanger bay doors and was gone, the remaining Dorssian shuttle following quickly behind it.

_'That's it then? We won?'_

She should be pursuing them. But for now it was all she could do to breathe and hang on to Carmilla's controls. This was no good. How could she go on piloting if this kept happening? Everyone in the module was depending on her. More importantly, she'd just be holding Haruto back again. She couldn't let that-

"Ruk- Uh, Saki, are you okay?"

Haruto's voice broke into her thoughts. Saki looked to her side and there he was, hand half-extended towards her tentatively, his blue eyes filled with concern.

"Yea... I'm okay." She replied softly.

"Is... is this because of what happened? What I-" Haruto's brow furrowed downwards as he spoke, as if an invisible weight was settling onto him.

_'Oh, hell.'_ Saki had to admit to herself that yes, yes it most likely was. But that wasn't something she could tell Haruto. If he found out she'd been screwed up this much by the rape, he'd just beat himself up over it more. And that wasn't something he needed.

He'd also pity her, probably. And that wasn't something she needed, either.

Saki forced herself to smile. She knew it looked fake, tremulous. But that was fine, a real smile wasn't necessary to sell the lies she was about to tell. "That? No, it wasn't that. I was in the entertainment industry, you know. I've had to deal with that kind of thing a bunch of times before. I just froze up there, like that first time I fought the Dorssians, you know? Afraid to die, that's all."

_'Stop that babbling, he's not gonna buy it!'_

He WASN'T buying it. He was still giving her that look. Behind Haruto, L-Elf was watching in contemplation, probably filing away her continued cowardice in that giant brain of his and factoring how it could be used to his advantage. Great. She couldn't care less what L-Elf thought of her. It was Haruto she needed to convince.

Haruto opened his mouth to speak, but she rode over him. "I don't know why I froze up like that. I mean, I'm supposed to be immortal and all, right? But I thought for sure he was going to smash Carmilla open and that was gonna be it. I'm- I'm gonna have to work on that!"

_'I AM gonna have to work on that. I've gotta deal with this. I HAVE to.'_

"You did fine, Rukino Saki." L-Elf spoke up. His flat voice filled with insincere sympathy. "That kind of reaction is normal for a civilian thrust into a combat role with no training. Under the circumstances you aquitted yourself well."

Saki fought to keep her eyes from rolling automatically. Who did L-Elf think he was gonna fool with THAT level of acting ability? He might as well have put a sign on his forehead that said 'comfort the hysterical damsel mode.' Still, she could work off that.

"Thank you, L-Elf-san." She said, working up a more realistic smile this time. "I'm feeling much better already."

Haruto still had that look, but seemed unwilling to press the point. He hovered awkwardly, hand still half-extended. "As long as you're feeling better..." He swallowed, shot a glance at L-Elf, and then back at her. Clearly he didn't want to discuss certain topics with L-Elf around. Fine by her.

The air seem to grow thick with words unsaid. Haruto's hand still hung there between them, awkward and unsure.

_'Oh, Haruto...'_

Saki reached out and took Haruto's hand, pulling herself towards him and sliding her arms around his shoulders in a tentative embrace. She was half-afraid that he would shove her away like he did that first time, but he made no move to do so. His body stiffened for a moment, and then he relaxed and reached out to hug her back.

His arms moved hesistantly around her. At first he just held her lightly, but as she squeezed him slightly he reciprocated, the material of their flight suits creaking softly. She leaned her helmeted head against his shoulder, wishing that she wasn't wearing the damn thing. Even though she couldn't feel any of his body heat through their suits, the gentle pressure of his arms was soothing around her.

L-Elf looked pointedly away, but Saki didn't notice. For the moment, the only thing that mattered was Haruto's embrace.

* * *

By the time Rukino-san was able to get Carmilla moving again, the fighting was over.

Some of the Dorssians had been abandoned inside the hanger by their compatriots; there hadn't been enough room inside their remaining shuttle to accomodate them all, it seemed. These had been rounded up by the student defense force under the leadership of Kibukawa-sensei. Haruto reminded himself to ask the physics teacher about his sudden display of military proficiency later.

The Dorssians outside the module had retreated as well, leaving behind the overheated VVV V and Nobu Lightning. VVV VI, its pilot still unknown, was hauling the two disabled Valvraves back towards the hanger. L-Elf had gotten back in contact with Command and was issuing orders from the side of Carmilla's cockpit. The main Dorssian fleet was standing off, apparently not willing to get in the module's way after taking the Harakiri Blade.

"Ahh, all's well that ends well, right?" Rukino-san sighed.

_'She seems like she's back to normal. But still...'_

Haruto was still iffy on Rukino-san's explanation for her... attack? Episode? Whatever it was. Yea, she'd frozen up pretty badly the first time she went into combat, but she'd pulled herself out of it and seemed to be fine ever since. Even when the Dorssians locked her down with those boomerang things she'd been alert enough to warn him about them. And if that wasn't the case, then it was probably because of what he'd done.

Guilt flushed hotly through Haruto's belly again. It was stupid of him to just assume that Rukino-san would be able to walk away from what happened unscathed. He was such a terrible person.

It was a wonder Rukino-san could stand to be around him, much less touch him.

_'But what about that hug?'_

Haruto just couldn't understand the hug. She'd been the one to initiate it, too. Victory rush? Relief at having escaped alive? Or was she trying to comfort him?

_'I'll do better by her. Once we're married, I'll-!'_

"Hey, look at that!" Rukino-san chirped.

VVV VI flew back into the hanger, followed by VVV V and Nobu Lightning, wreaths of vapor from the cooling system still steaming off them. Rukino-san piloted Carmilla to join them. The four Valvraves lined up along the wall of the hanger and squatted down.

Yamada was the first one out of his Valvrave, grinning broadly as he pulled off his helmet, his orange hair uncharacteristically crushed flat. "You sure saved our asses back there!" He called out to VVV VI. "Those were some damn nice moves!"

Inuzuka-senpai popped out of VVV V as well. "Thanks for the save! And welcome to the team!"

Rukino-san nodded at Haruto, and then kicked off from her seat, heading for the hatch with L-Elf right behind her. Haruto followed, his enthusiasm for meeting the pilot dampened down by his guilt. But dealing with Rukino-san had to wait; someone else had been cursed, after all, and he couldn't count on them being quite as pleased as Yamada had been.

"Thanks for the hand!" Rukino-san yelled as soon as she was clear of Carmilla. "We were toast back there without you!"

L-Elf didn't say a word; just kicked off towards where the student defense force had the Dorssian captives huddled in a knot.

"Thank you for your help!" Haruto was out of the hatch. "There's some piloting stuff we should talk about, uhm, if you don't mind!"

They had all gathered at the base of VVV VI by now. The purple Valvrave remained silent, although Haruto had the distinct impression that someone was watching them from inside. L-Elf had taken charge of the prisoners and was herding them away with a group of student defense force, no doubt to the jailblock. The remaining members of the defense force were crowding up towards VVV VI, also eager to find out who the new pilot was.

Haruto looked at Inuzuka-senpai and Yamada. "Did they talk to either of you?"

"Nope. We figured their communications were out or something," Inuzuka-senpai responded as Yamada shook his head. "Maybe Otamaya-kun didn't get Unit Six hooked up yet."

"Guess we should wait..." Rukino-san said.

They waited in hushed expectation, spread out in two crescents. The four Valvrave pilots in front, the student defense force behind them, muttering in hushed whispers. A minute passed. Two.

"Dammit! Come out already!" Yamada was out of patience.

"Maybe they're injured in there?" Rukino-san wondered. "Should we go and make sure they're okay?"

"Let's wait a little longer." Inuzuka-senpai offered.

They waited a little longer. The mutterings from the students behind them started to sound concerned.

Haruto was getting concerned as well. "Maybe Saki is right." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Rukino-san sneak a quick look at him. "We should go up there, make sure they're not injured," he continued. "Maybe they took a hit that nobody noticed, or-"

VVV VI's hatch hissed open.

A very familiar head of brown hair poked out of the cockpit.

"Shoko..."

All of Haruto's concern for Rukino-san was drive instantly out of his mind at the sight of Shoko emerging from VVV VI.

"Shoko is... Shoko is cursed!" Had he spoken the words or just thought them? He didn't know.

It couldn't be. But there Shoko was, her upper body rising into view now. How could this happen? Haruto felt like he was crumbling apart. Why was she in the Valvrave? Why wasn't she nice and safe up on the bridge where she belonged?

It was over now. He had failed. Let her down. Shoko had been given a second chance, and he'd squandered it. He'd failed to keep her safe again. If he'd done his job protecting the module, she never would have gotten into the Valvrave. It was all his fault.

Shoko was crouched atop VVV VI now, looking back down into the cockpit. She smiled and waved into the Valvrave as the hatch closed, and then looked up towards them.

_'What's she doing?'_

Shoko started to speak. Haruto strained to listen through the rushing din of his thoughts, hope blossoming in his heart once again as her words became clear.

* * *

Saki was shocked when Shoko-san emerged from VVV VI's cockpit. The Prime Minister was the last person she would have expected to see. Anyone, even Nanami-sensei would have seemed a more likely candidate for the mystery pilot. Not that Shoko-san wasn't committed to the defense of the module, but she didn't seem like the kind of person who would be fighting on the front lines.

Beside her, Haruto gave a choked gasp. "Shoko..."

"Aaaaah? It was Sashinami all along?" Yamada was shocked.

The students behind her murmured in astonishment.

"Prime Minister Sashinami?"

"Sashinami-san?"

Saki took a look over at Haruto. All the blood had drained from his face and his blue eyes were huge in his colorless face.

"Shoko is... Shoko is cursed!" Haruto wheezed out.

"Haruto!" Saki said sharply, trying to snap him out of it. No response.

Saki herself wasn't sure how she felt about Shoko being a fifth pilot. Part of her was grateful to the brunette for saving them all and the module, but the part of her that regarded Shoko as a rival for Haruto was furious. Shoko was taking one step closer to the special bond between herself and Haruto by becoming a Kamitsuki. Immortality, the main obstacle between Haruto and Shoko was now gone, and now how could she hope to compete with Shoko's childhood friend status?

_'No, shouldn't think that way. Shoko saved us all from Dorssia. Think about that first, you selfish bitch!'_

"Thank you, Sashinami-san!" Inuzuka-senpai cheered.

The students behind her were starting to cheer as well.

"Yea! Prime Minister Sashinami!"

"I'm sorry I voted for Satomi-senpai!"

"You're the best Prime Minister ever!"

Shoko-san waved down into VVV VI's cockpit, and then stood up straight, raising her hands, an embarrassed grin appearing on her face.

_'What, is she going to give a speech? Is she becoming a politician that quickly?'_

"Everyone, this is just a misunderstanding!" Shoko-san spread her hands and waved them from side to side. "I'm not the pilot!"

""""EHHHHHHHHHHH?"""" A collective shout rose from all the students, pilots and defense force alike.

"The pilot is a friend of mine, you see! She, uhm, in order to save my life she let me in the cockpit, but she's been the one that's been piloting and saved everyone!" Shoko-san went on.

_'So it wasn't Shoko after all? Thank goodness!'_ Saki couldn't keep herself from feeling a flush of relief.

"Well? Who is it?" One of the student defense force called out.

"Ah, well, the pilot, she's super-shy, you see, and she doesn't like crowds very much, uhm, so if you could all give her a little-"

"SHOKO!"

Everyone jumped and flinched back from Haruto, who had launched himself up towards Shoko-san with a scream.

"Eh, Haruto, whaaaa-!"

Haruto hurtled into Shoko with such force that she spun around with his arms around her. He stayed there atop VVV VI, hugging her tightly.

Saki stared up at the two in shock. Her Haruto was-

"Yeeeaaa! Way to go, Haruto!" Inuzuka-senpai cheered.

The student defense followed suit, cheering for the two entwined figures atop the Valvrave. A bolt of pain shot through Saki's heart, and she found herself clenching her fist to her chest.

_'Who am I kidding? Shoko-san will always have a special place in Haruto's heart.'_

Standing amid the cheering students and her fellow pilots, looking up at the boy she loved hugging another girl, Saki had never felt more alone.

* * *

Chamca was tired. And also very, very hungry.

He had not expected the student pilots to put up such an effective resistance once he seized the Valvrave. In addition, the appearance of the specialized hacking Valvrave unit had put a wrench into all of his plans. He should have been able to use his commandeered unit's drives to escape the module; instead he'd been forced to expend his rune reserves and burn through more than half of his host's remaining runes to move the thing to rendevous with the _Obersturm_. All he wanted to was get back to his quarters and feed from his emergency ration there. And also to eat his host body's more conventional dinner, delayed since before the operation.

But that, it seemed, was not to be.

As he stepped out onto the _Obersturm's_ hanger, Kriemhild rushed up to him. "Welcome back aboard, sir! You've been summoned by Captain Abrin to his flagship. He said he wants you there immediately."

Chamca sighed. It looked like his dinner was on hold. Again. For both his host body AND himself this time. "Thank you, Kriem. I expect to be back shortly. Have dinner warmed up for me in my quarters, if you please?"

"Of course, sir."

_'Is that a hint of concern I detect in your voice, Kriem?'_ Ah, what would he do without her?

There was already a shuttle prepared for him. He embarked, nodded to the pilot, and settled in to wait.

To be sure, this turn of events wasn't entirely unexpected. He had laid his plans for such an eventuality well in advance. Chancellor Amadeus would have met with the Council already, and Rear Admiral Wartenberg had placed the notoriously timid Captain Abrin in command of the rear guard of his fleet, as expected. With Wartenberg dead and the majority of the attacking forces destroyed, command passed to Abrin, who no doubt wished to find a scapegoat for the spectacular failure of an operation as quickly as possible.

Chamca would have laughed, if he wasn't so tired. A failure to Dorssia, perhaps. But a resounding victory for the Council. Even now, back on the _Obersturm_, the captured Valvrave was being readied for transport back to Earth. And he had no intention of being Captain Abrin's scapegoat, either.

All that was needed was one quick call. And there was more than enough time during the flight to make it.

The shuttle docked with Captain Abrin's _Hennecke_ soon enough and Chamca found him being escorted to the Captain's office by a pair of soldiers.

_'Am I considered a prisoner already?'_ The thought amused him.

The soldiers brought him to the Captain's office, saluted Abrin at his desk, and then left the room, leaving Chamca alone with the Captain.

Chamca studied the man behind the desk. Captain Abrin was a tall, thin man with a sparse mustache, in his thirties but already starting to go gray, stands of silver showing in his thin receding black hair. From his past encounters with the man, Chamca knew him to be one of those types filled with nervous energy, and right now the Captain looked like he was about to have a seizure. His fingersdanced like nervous mice atop his desk and his long, normally pale face was red with anger.

"May I sit?" Cain decided to tweak the man a little.

Captain Abrin looked like he was about to burst a vein at this breach of military etiquette. "No, Colonel Cain, you may stand." He squeezed between his teeth. "Just... what in the HELL were you up to with this operation?"

"I deemed my actions to be in the best interests of Dorssia the Great." Chamca said smoothly.

"You-you- WHAT?!" the Captain exploded. "You withheld information from your superiors that led to the direct FAILURE of the operation! You KNEW ahead of time about that weapon the Valvraves used, didn't you!" He jabbed a long finger towards Chamca's chest. "Your actions led to the deaths of over two thousand Dorssian soldiers, just so you could go on your own private QUEST FOR GLORY! And if these rumors on the internet can be believed, you USED AN ILLEGAL CHEMICAL WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION ON A CIVILIAN POPULATION! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT KIND OF FALLOUT WE'LL BE FACING INTERNATIONALLY OVER THIS?!"

"I captured one of the enemy Valvraves." Chamca offered, letting a bit of smugness creep into his voice.

Captain Abrin looked like he was about to hit him. With a visible effort, the thin Captain calmed himself down. "And I hope it was worth it for you. Colonel Cain, I find your actions amount to no less than TREASON. You may consider yourself under arrest, Colonel. I intend to bring you before a court martial and prosecute you fully for your crimes."

"You do what you need to, Captain." Chamca shrugged as if nothing the Captain said concerned him.

The Captain opened his mouth, but right on cue, the console on his desk bleeped. Scowling, the Captain tapped at the touchscreen.

"Captain sir, you have a call." A woman's hushed voice came over the comm.

"I told you I wasn't to be disturbed!"

"But sir! It's... It's Chancellor Amadeus himself! He says he wants to speak with you!"

"What? The Chan..." The Captain shot Chamca a glance. "Put him through." He hit a button on his console to transfer the call to his phone, and then picked up the receiver from its holder.

"This is Captain Abrin. Yessir, Chancellor sir. Yes, I am. Ah, yes, he's here, sir. Do you... want to speak to him? Ah, alright. I'm-"

Chamca watched Captain Abrin's demeanor change completely. One moment he was meek and nervous, and the next, still nervous, but shocked. His eyes widened, his red face paled, and a bead of sweat rolled down his high forehead.

"Sir! But... he was responsible for the deaths of over two thousand men! He can't... No, sir! No. I'm... No, sir. Ah... I... I understand. Yes, sir."

_'Thank you, Mirko.'_

Captain Abrin hung up his phone, a defeated man. He slumped in his seat. "I suppose it must be nice to have friends in high places, Colonel."

"Indeed." Chamca agreed. "Lifelong friends are a wonderful thing."

"You can show yourself out."

Chamca started to salute the Captain mockingly, then changed his mind. The man's career was over, even if he didn't know it. Why wait until he was back onboard the _Obersturm_ for his dinner? He quickly moved to stand to Captain Abrin's side.

"What, what are you doing? Get out of here." Captain Abrin looked up at him, secure in his rank, not understanding.

Chamca suddenly lunged forward. With one hand, he pinned the Captain's arms, holding them down. With the other hand, he seized Abrin's head by the mouth, twisted to reveal the neck. Abrin let out a short muffled cry as Chamca's fangs sank into his flesh.

Chapter 2 End

* * *

**A/N: Thanks again to xchrispx for beta reading! Also thanks to IzanagiMikoto for helping me streamline some ideas for later on and filling in what would have been a plot hole in Chapter 3. And both of them for bouncing ideas off of in general.**

**Omake for Chapter 1 is in my profile! I'd put it here but Fanfiction doesn't like external links in stories.**

**Are you faster on your feet than Haruto? Can you figure out what Cain's countersign was? XD**

**Sorry this chapter took so long to come out. There were some reasons for why it was delayed, so hopefully future chapters will not take nearly a month like this one did. I had to be hospitalized for pneumonia at the end of December (actually spent New Year's in the hospital, boo). And then the chapter kept getting longer and longer as I wrote it. At first it was going to be ~8000 words like the first chapter, but it kept growing...**

**Thanks to everyone for your reviews and encouragement! I know my track record isn't all that good on the completion angle with... well, my other fic. It's a little late to be talking about the ending to Valvrave, I suppose. Suffice to say I disliked it immensely... but it actually really motivated me to see this fic through, in order to fix all the mistakes I feel the writers made with the series.**

**For those of you who may be iffy about the Akira x Yamada pairing, I do hope to do justice by them. I'm not going to just throw them together with no development. And just in case you're worried, they WILL have second ticket to Haruto x Saki.**

**And on the note of Haruto x Saki, I'm sorry to do that to you guys at the end of the chapter like that. I promise there won't be anything like that in Chapter 3, at least! :D And as far as Chapter 3 goes, the recap ends here, and we're into completely new territory from here on out.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading and here's to seeing you in the next chapter!**

**Updates on story progress and omakes for past chapters can be found in my profile!**


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